A Quantum of Solace
by Celesma
Summary: "It was very clear to Sam that he was dreaming. That, or the witch had gone and cast the one spell he really, really wished she hadn't—namely, the one that shrank people." When Sam is injured from a witch's shrinking spell, he learns where he and Castiel really stand. Unrepentant Sam/Cas fluff.
1. Chapter One

A/N: Another AO3 original, in seven parts! This one's not quite done yet (Chapter Seven is still on the way), but I'd love to hear your feedback. Sam/Cas + lotsa crack + lotsa fluff = the weirdest (but strangely fun) thing I've ever written. This takes place in S05, shortly after the boys start hunting together again.

My memory of the S05 timeline is extremely shaky, so parts of this may not sync up with canon.

* * *

 **A Quantum of Solace**

 **Chapter One**

Sam supposed he shouldn't have been surprised that it was Castiel who found him.

The world was white and without form. His head hurt like a bitch. Actually, that wasn't really true—his head felt more or less like it was going to pop off and float away like an errant balloon, but that wasn't really the same as _pain_. It was his everything _else_ that hurt: his chest screamed with the echoing impact of a fall from a long distance, his limbs felt like snapped toothpicks, and there was a stitch in his side the size of Texas.

Aside from the part where he was pretty sure he couldn't walk, it was just another day in the week for Sam Winchester. A _Tuesday_ sort of day, but still. At least no one had choked him.

"Dean, you fucker," he muttered. His own voice sounded distant and faded to his ears, and he was pretty sure Dean wasn't anywhere in the vicinity anymore, but calling his brother an idiot meant he was at least in control of _some_ of his faculties, and that was a plus. Sam had been more than willing to take a peaceful tack when it came to dealing with the local witch—it wasn't like they suspected _her_ for the disappearances in town; they'd just entered her fairy tale-pretty cottage hoping to skim some kind of lead off her—but Dean had inexplicably decided to go off script, whipping out his gun and screaming at the lavender-haired woman even before she could ask what the hell two hunters were doing in her home.

Sam tried to reconstruct those last couple of seconds in his mind. It was hard going. The clearest thing he remembered was the look of shock and fear on the woman's face; as vivid as the purple hair and the purple clothes and the purple shades of chipped polish on her bitten-down fingernails. _An_ _ **anxious**_ _witch, then_ , Sam had thought, right before she looked in his direction with a rushed spell on her lips and vanished with a crack like a bat connecting with his head.

Needless to say, the world had vanished in that moment as well.

Sam finished taking stock of himself. He was still wearing his button-down plaid shirt, hastily rescued from the motel laundry room that morning when the child of the couple next door had decided she was going to be a lumberjack (or was that lumberjane?) for Halloween; still had all his weapons on him (including the gun he'd failed to draw, a visible gesture to the witch that not every hunter was all about _shoot first and ask questions never_ ; he would have to remember to thank Dean with a whack upside the head later). Other than the balloon-esque dimensions of his skull and the pain that was marching up and down his body with viciously stamping feet, Sam thought he was in pretty good shape.

Until he sat up, and looked around him, and the whiteness resolved into an actual picture.

Before he hadn't had time to really survey the living room. Now, every last detail was blown into impossible, hallucinatory proportion: shelves crowded with books and figurines stretched for what seemed like miles into the sky, tapered off at a pebbled ceiling from which hung cheerful paper lanterns the size of houses; the room's single couch, festooned with psychedelic flower patterns, rose behind him like a monolith; candles as tall as the Impala was long emitted powerful aromas of pumpkin spice. The front door—the very one he and Dean had come through—was still open, admitting an IMAX-worthy view of red and orange foliage sweeping across a quiet suburban street, while the last Harry Potter book lay open just inches from his feet, the typeset large enough that he was instantly spoilered to hell and back about the location of the final Horcrux.

It was very clear to Sam that he was dreaming. That, or the witch had gone and cast the one spell he really, _really_ wished she hadn't.

Namely: the one that shrank people.

Comforting as it was, he had to abandon the _it was all a dream_ line of thought when Dean's voice suddenly broke the silence, shouting Sam's name in the thunderous tones of a spooked, trumpeting elephant. And now his head _did_ hurt. "I'M DOWN HERE. STOP YELLING," Sam screamed back, but Dean failed to heed his demand, or even to take notice of him, his voice growing more and more panicky each time he didn't hear a response to his call, moving from the bedroom to the kitchen and back into the den with enormous stomping feet. Not that Sam wasn't trying. For one instant he was hilariously (and sickly) reminded of a Doctor Seuss book—how had it gone, the one where all the little people had to yell to be heard? _A person's a person no matter how small?_

He could have made a joke about how Sam Winchester was no person, no matter _what_ size he was; only now Dean was bringing out the big guns.

"Cas!" Fear lanced through Sam's chest as well as pain, and for no reason he could think of he was crawling under the couch, joining the company of a stuffed animal that would have been creepy even without being a hulking shape staring at him with glittering black eyes. The simple act of relocating left him feeling rubbery and drained, like he'd just completed a deadlifting set; it was all he could do not to collapse into the layers of dust and dirt streaking the floor. Clearly their witch didn't believe in vaccuuming, probably for reasons of being environmentally conscious or something. "Cas, I'm on 1660 Sheffield Drive in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I don't care if you're in the Vatican bumping uglies with the Pope, you need to get down here and _right the hell no—_ "

Sam didn't need to see Castiel manifest to know when the angel appeared next to Dean; the change in air pressure was impossible to mistake now that he was small enough to fit in someone's pocket, and the _holiness_ his presence always commanded seemed even more immediate, more oppressive. (Although Sam knew that likely had nothing to do with his size and everything to do with Lucifer's increased presence in his dreams... not that he was going to give Dean any _more_ reason to stress over him.) They hadn't seen Castiel in weeks, consumed as he was with his search for God; and Sam thought he could pinpoint exactly how peeved the angel was going to be now that Dean was interrupting the good fight.

He was right. "I'm not in the mood for your irreverence, Dean," Castiel said in irritated tones, his voice a deep rumble that swept over Sam's eardrums like the distant sound of bagpipes over rolling hills. Sam estimated that they were in the kitchen; he couldn't see them from his vantage point, but he could hear the thud of a knife connecting with cheap particle board: striking surfaces with sharp objects was an old nervous habit of Dean's. "What is the problem?"

"What do you think? It's _Sam_ ," his brother snapped, worry for Sam precluding any possibility of being civil to an angel of the Lord (or half-angel of the Lord, or whatever Cas was now). "The idiot went and got himself cursed—banished—I don't know, Luna Lovegood took off before I could get anything outta her—"

" _I'm_ the idiot?" Sam retorted under his breath, not even bothering to suppress the childish need to defend himself _in absentia_. "For your information, that witch was clean. No dark magic, no hoodoo shit. If you hadn't come in with guns blazing like some Arnold reject—"

He regretted the words even before he felt the shift of Castiel's vast weight, and the angel was moving into the den with a slowness that seemed premeditated. Each click of his dress shoes on the wooden floor inspired a burgeoning sense of dread in the younger Winchester. He would have retreated further into the darkness but for his nearly non-functional legs, and the fatigue that seemed to be dragging him deeper and deeper into the depths with each passing second. "Dean," Cas said. "I hear him. Sam is still here."

"What?" Dean still sounded angry, but also more hopeful. "What'd he say?"

"I don't know. His voice sounds... thin. Far away. I believe he called you an idiot." Castiel sounded almost satisfied at the last.

"Can't you call up some of that angel juice and figure out where he is? I've looked _everywhere_ , Cas." Dean's anger had transmuted into plain desperation. Sam could imagine the angel glaring at Dean with heavily tried patience.

"I don't know how many times I have explained this to you, Dean. I don't have _angel juice_ anymore. Not like I once did. I only know that Sam is still somewhere in the vicinity." The steps grew closer, more purposeful. "I will help you look for him. Have you checked outside?"

The kitchen door slammed in reply. Sam could almost imagine Dean muttering as he wandered around the animal-themed topiary he'd heavily side-eyed pulling up the driveway ("could we have _picked_ a freakier witch?" his brother asked with almost helpless outrage, to which Sam responded that he thought it was cute, and also that Dean should focus on not running over the mailbox). Dean's angel, for his part, walked calmly through the preternatural silence, even the click of his heels disappearing as he tread across a fluffy throw rug.

 _Dean's angel._ And apparently those were all the words needed for Sam's vague uneasiness to morph into a full-fledged species of terror. He hadn't thought he was afraid of Castiel, but the angel had never been his biggest fan— _because_ _being a demonic vampire freak doesn't exactly make for a great first impression, genius—_ and he had long agonized over the knowledge that _he_ was the reason Castiel was now a fugitive from his own home, his own family. Had had to endure the private hell of permanent separation from the Host, while he slowly lost every vestige of the power that had made him what he was.

Let the record show: Sam Winchester had fucked up. He'd thought he could stop Lucifer on his own, but the only thing he'd proven was that he was a dumb bastard with an enormous chip on his shoulder and enough hubris to match. Not to mention, the _permanence_ of Lucifer's rising sort of depended on his continued existence.

It was no accident that Dean had been sent outside.

After all, Castiel had every reason to smash him like a bug.

Castiel was past the throw rug now. His foot fetched up against the Harry Potter book. Sam broke into a cold sweat and his migraine intensified on a withheld sneeze as the angel knelt to peer closer at it, casting a shadow that was long and deep enough to plunge everything into near-complete darkness. A moment later the angel picked up the book and moved it, as though setting it aside for closer inspection, and the resulting shaft of light revealed the most enormous hands Sam had ever seen. Delicately shaped and uncallused, but still: _huge_. The younger Winchester nearly made the mistake of crying out for Dean, but he stuffed the words down and prayed instead.

 _Please don't find me. Please don't find me._

Castiel paused. "That is a very unusual thing to pray to an angel," he said with slow graveness, and Sam nearly screamed for his sheer incompetence. He knelt in front of the couch once more. Sam couldn't see his face, which was just as well because he could barely fucking handle the sight of his hands. "Sam, I can hear you. You sound hurt. Dean says that the witch is gone; it's safe to come out." Silence. "Please. I don't know why you are hiding, but please show yourself to me. I can't tell what has been done to you, unless—"

"I." Sam nearly choked on the single syllable. The chilly sheen on his skin had gone arctic. He hadn't felt such gut-twisting terror since Ruby's revelation, and if he was going to die—well, he deserved it. If Castiel wanted to kill him, he was going to kill him, and it was the very definition of selfishness to wait until Dean potentially caught him in the act and had yet another reason to be traumatized by Heaven. "I'm going to try. Coming out, I mean. But." He swallowed hard. He wasn't sure thanks to the darkness, but he thought he might be going dizzy. "I, I can't move real fast..."

"Don't rush yourself," Castiel warned.

He sounded genuine enough. Sam braced himself, maneuvering as best he could on hands and knees past the bizarre landmark of the stuffed animal, past the entire sordid company of dust bunnies, ignoring the pain screaming through his limbs. Almost worse than the pain, though, was the nausea; dust and sweat made for a truly nasty combination. He shut his eyes as he came into the light, like a mole monster unfit to be seen outside its underground lair.

There was a brief intake of air above him. Well. He'd managed to surprise Cas. "Oh," the angel said. Whispered, now that he knew what was going on. Sam couldn't say he didn't appreciate it.

A long moment passed. "How are you feeling?" Cas finally asked.

Was that a serious question? "Um," Sam said.

Another long moment. The world spun beneath Sam's hands and knees; he focused on nothing but his own reflection in the polished wood, resolutely ignoring the oversized circus dimensions right outside his peripheral vision, ignoring the giant upon whose mercy he would live or die in the next few seconds.

"Um...?" Castiel prompted, sounding somewhat helpless. When no answer was forthcoming, he said: "Sam, may I look at you?"

 _No._ Dear God, no. Not even with Dean would he have been prepared for that. "I—my head hurts, really bad," Sam said, relenting. "My whole body does. I can't walk."

Castiel made a low humming noise. The sound prompted Sam to instinctively turn his face towards it, and in an instant he was struck by vertigo, Castiel's form looming over him like a skyscraper, trenchcoat stark and angular and giving him the appearance of something straight out of _The Iron Giant_. He really should have just quit while he was behind, but like a train running off the tracks his gaze just kept going up and up and up, until finally it found Castiel's face.

Immediately his vision was shot through with blue. Well, that just figured. It was almost the only thing he'd noticed the first time he'd ever met Cas. At the time, he had thought it was beautiful. It still was, but now it also scared the shit out of him. Those pools— _oceans—_ of water drew his eyes with a force that bordered on the magnetized. Castiel seemed to understand what was happening, his movements incredibly slow, as though conducted underwater. Sam was more certain than he'd been a minute ago that Castiel wasn't going to hurt him, but it was still so strange. He had long known Cas as the one to (in Dean's words) _smite ass and take names_ , taking up his brother's cause with an efficiency that was as graceful as it was merciless; he didn't know how to reconcile that with the endlessly careful creature before him now.

When Castiel finally blinked, the sway of long dark lashes interrupting Sam's reverie, he was stunned to realize that the angel had stretched himself by tiny increments into a lying position, meaning his face now hung mere inches away, instead of mere feet. Sam's first thought was that Cas could really benefit from some chapstick. The second was how unfair it was that angels got to have perfect unmarred skin while he still had to deal with acne at the tender age of twenty-six.

Only by the third thought did he become fully aware of just how screwed he really was. He froze and an inaudible squeak of terror forced its way up his throat.

"Do not be alarmed," Castiel said.

His lips barely moved. Sam's eyes swung to them anyway, transfixed. Like a mouse caught between the cat's paws.

Then—completing the prey animal motif—he fell to the floor. Closed his eyes and pulled himself into a ball.

So this was it, then. He'd been caught sleeping, as it were; Bobby would probably have something to say about that. Or would have had something to say, if Sam wasn't about to die horribly right now.

 _I am so sorry_ , he thought. He wasn't sure to whom. Maybe to Bobby, or his dad. To Dean for sure. Or even Castiel—

Warmth sank into his bones, like steam from a hot bath. Sam was immediately confused. To his knowledge, this _wasn't_ what being pulverized felt like. He dared to open one eye. Castiel's face still hovered above him, impossibly wide, his eyes closed in a picture of serene concentration. Sam could not quite comprehend what was happening; but as the warmth spread from his bones into his blood and finally seeped clean through to his skin, causing his spine to involuntarily unwind and his mind to relax, it came to him: Castiel was breathing on him.

It was the one thing he never expected, and his laugh was more like a sob. A snatch of a scene from a book he had loved as a child—a lion approaching a statue, bending its great head to breathe it back to life, imparting strength and dignity and wisdom far unequal to the person upon whom the gift was bestowed—flashed through his mind, eliciting a full-body shudder. The coolness of falling snow, the warm light of a lone lamppost, fauns that invited queens to tea and beavers that sat at sewing machines... "Cas," he muttered, as the pain faded away to a distant memory and his skin grew clean and clear. Castiel said nothing, just kept breathing _in_ and _out_ , and Sam felt his own chest surrender to the rise and fall of that calm, unhurried rhythm. Castiel's lips closed around one last swell and then his face was retreating with unbearable slowness, brilliant blue eyes opening to watch him with something like relief. Sam looked up into them, for a brief eternity just letting himself slip away, drift on the gentle waters.

At long last Castiel tipped his head to one side, and he spoke.

"Do you still feel pain, Sam?"

He was still whispering.

"No," Sam said. Already that dreamy feeling of stillness was beginning to fade, and he wished he could hold onto it for just a little more. "No, I'm all better." Then, shyly: "Thanks."

Castiel's head tipped in the other direction. Sam took this to mean that Castiel didn't particularly think he deserved thanks, but he wasn't about to take it back. "I'm glad. My Grace is... imperfect, these days. I could not rely on ordinary means of healing due to your—er, condition—and because of my own misgivings about my power."

"I'm sorry," Sam murmured. "It's my fault."

Castiel's brows knitted together like he wanted to argue, but he said nothing more, and he pushed himself back up to kneeling, every angle of him unfolding like origami as he resumed his initial unfathomable height. "Can you stand?" he asked.

He waited patiently as the young hunter extended a leg, gingerly tested his bearings. "I think so," he said after a moment. It took more than a few minutes to get to his feet and he was still a little wobbly, but Sam thought he managed it okay.

He nearly fell back on his ass when Cas extended his palm to him, clearly expecting him to hop aboard. It may have been a promontory of flesh and fingers he was staring at, but this was _just_ like that time Dean had tried to sneak their underaged butts onto that shady-as-shit wooden coaster at Jersey Shore. He was neither ready nor enthused to exchange one death trap for another.

"Come," Castiel said simply. "I will convey you to your brother."

"You couldn't just—poof me?" Sam ventured timidly. Cas just gave him a look, and with a watery sigh Sam stepped forward, trying to summon those inner reserves of otherworldly strength Castiel had breathed into him. It helped a little bit, but not enough to stop the embarrassing little _oh_ that popped out of his mouth as he tripped over the angel's thumb (easy to do when said thumb was at least as big as you were).

Castiel's hand was comfortable, and it was warm. Sitting in his palm, Sam felt a bit like a baby bird in a nest. Still: it was hardly safe. "I could do with a seatbelt," Sam muttered, more to be facetious than anything else, and started when Castiel's other hand came up and began to curl around him, fashioning just such a feature. Sam let himself be cradled in those exceedingly gentle fingers. He held onto Castiel's thumb, secured firmly around his waist, and didn't panic even when the angel drew his enfolded hands close to his chest. The distant thunder of a steady heartbeat roared in Sam's ears, and he smelled trees.

"Is this acceptable?" Castiel asked. Sam nodded. "We are moving now," he added, rather unnecessarily, and they rose. Sam's heart swooped in his stomach as his view gradually shifted to a full-scale panorama of the living room, like the moment the coaster had crested the top of a hundred-foot hill and then just sat there overlooking the beach, ratcheting up the tension in his seven-year-old heart. No amount of junk food from Dean afterward could dry Sam's tears, but Sam had to admit: this was kind of nice. He could distinguish the titles of books on Wiccan philosophy and practice, _Meditations of Mystics Through the Ages, Communing with Mother Earth, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love my Tarot Deck_ ; he nearly laughed when he saw that one of the carved figures acting as a bookend depicted a lion sitting peacefully on a rock. If he and the witch didn't walk in such monumentally opposed social circles, he thought they could have been friends.

Maybe they still could be. It's not like he ever thought he'd be friends with an angel, either. Provided, of course, she was willing to reverse the whole _shrinking him down to the size of a thimble_ thing.

"You told Dean to go outside. Did you—um—did you know?"

"I suspected," Cas said. "I did not think he would react well."

Sam chuckled. "You got that right. Dean is gonna _freak_ when he finds out _._ You know, uh," he added as they moved into the kitchen, "you're surprisingly good at this."

Surprise rippled gently through Castiel. "I suppose that's to be expected," he said after a moment. "I am accustomed to humans being of—of a certain height. In my true form, I am at least as tall as one of your skyscrapers. This arrangement is... you could say it's a return to form for me."

Well. There was really nothing Sam could say to _that_ , other than that he had yet another reason to be awed by his brother's angel. "I'm glad one of us is taking this well," he said honestly. Then: "Thank you."

"You already said that," Cas reminded him.

"Yeah." Sam huffed a laugh. "I sort of thought you were going to kill me, so."

For an instant Cas actually stopped walking, surprise radiating from him once more. Then the angel gave a long, put-upon sigh. "Sam Winchester, you are ridiculous," he murmured with no small amount of irritated affection. "But you are also my friend. I am not inclined to kill you."

 _Friends._

They paused when they reached the back door. "So, tell me. How _did_ this happen?" Castiel asked, and Sam proceeded to explain just how boneheaded his brother really was.


	2. Chapter Two

_Dean freaks, Sam takes a tumble, and Cas takes Sam on a coffee shop date._

* * *

 **A Quantum of Solace**

 **Chapter Two**

Castiel's prediction turned out to be exactly right. Dean did not react well.

"What the _f_ _uck_ ," the older Winchester said for maybe the fifth time in as many minutes, gaping down at Sam like he was... well, like he was the size of a green army man. "I thought this shit only happened in kids' movies. You get me on the phone with Hollywood, I could pitch _H_ _oney, I Shrunk the Winchester_."

"You should keep your voice down," Castiel advised. "Sam's hearing is sensitive."

They were back in the kitchen. Cas had managed to find Dean loitering in the topiary, scowling at a chubby penguin in a waistcoat like he was going to kick its ass by the monkey bars after school. After a whole lot of yelling and ranting over Sam's condition (much of which consisted of _what the **fuck**_ and _seriously, **fuck** witches_ ), the angel had managed to wrangle the apoplectic hunter back inside. They stood facing each other by the kitchen island, while Sam admired the spice rack in more detail than he probably ever needed to know; at this size, he could practically count the grains of alligator pepper in its quaint glass container. A bank of fluorescent lights shone overhead, which he supposed was convenient for cooking but didn't mesh very well with the rest of the house's fairy tale atmosphere. Also, it was sort of blinding him. He dared to shuffle backwards into the small pool of shade created by Castiel's cupped fingers, only startling slightly when they shifted accomodatingly in response, shielding him from the glare. When Sam peeked through the ceiling of fingers to gauge the angel's reaction, Castiel was looking not at him but at Dean.

"Well first things fir—fuck, what even would _be_ the first thing to do here? Dad's journal never covered anything like this, did it?" Dean had lowered his voice in rare deference to Cas's wishes, but the hysterical edge remained. Seconds later he answered his own question. "No, of course not. Because we'd have _heard_ about it if any hunter was in danger of being turned into a super midget. Congratulations, Thumbelina: you just made history."

"It's the first I've seen of it as well," Castiel admitted. "Spells of this nature are... unprecedented."

"And you can't just poof him back?" Dean glared at the angel like he'd hexed Sam himself.

Castiel was well familiar now with how Dean chose to manifest concern. "I can't," he said regretfully.

"I _am_ right here, you know," Sam volunteered, but Dean didn't even look down at him, mostly owing to the fact that he didn't even seem to realize when Sam was speaking unless he yelled. Plus, there had to be something depressing about seeing your brother—the brother who still answered dutifully to loving nicknames like _Gigantor_ and _Sam Bunyan_ —reduced to being maybe a hundredth of your own body mass. Sam could practically hear the cogs in Dean's head sputtering as his older brother got to work recalling the battery of short jokes he'd made all through Sam's adolescence.

Sam sighed. This was going to _suck_ , and not just for the obvious reasons.

"At least Sammy ain't hurt, right?" Dean asked after a long moment, scrubbing a weary hand over his face. "That witch didn't fuck up anything internal?"

"He was hurt by the initial transformation—" Dean looked up sharply, eyes narrowed— "but I was able to heal his injuries. He'll be all right, Dean." Sam wished he could feel more reassured by Cas's words. "We just need to reverse the spell."

" _We_? What's with this _we_ stuff?" The stink-eye Dean was giving Castiel could level buildings. "No, I think me and Sammy are gonna take care of this problem on our own, like we always have. You've proven yourself beyond useless, so flap on off back to Jerusalem or wherever it was you came from. Maybe bring us a bag of Holy Grounds the next time you drop in, if you really want to get on my good side."

To Sam's immense relief, Castiel chose to stand his ground rather than take Dean up on that offer, flying away and sending Sam tumbling a distance of what would probably feel like miles before he splattered all over the tile. "I am not going anywhere."

"Did I stutter?" Dean said. Before Castiel could answer: "What, you need it in something other than English? Okay, _exitus_. Latin. _Vamoose_. Spanish. Make like a _tree_ and—"

"DEAN!" Sam roared, and for once Dean actually looked at him. "SHUT UP."

There was a brief and very awkward silence. Castiel moved to break it.

"You don't understand," he said. "Regardless of whether or not you can restore Sam under your own power—and I doubt very much that you can—Lucifer is still going to be seeking his vessel. Sam will only be more vulnerable to him in his current state."

"The kid's like an inch tall," Dean demurred. "How's Luci gonna find him?"

"I'm not leaving him," Castiel said again.

Sam thought he was probably only imagining the sensation of a thumb tightening protectively around his waist. All the same, gratitude welled from him. "Thanks, Cas," he mumbled, his words for the angel's ears only. "You don't have to do this."

Castiel was puzzled. "I know that," he said. "Does it change anything?"

* * *

It was immediately clear that transportation would be a problem.

Dean didn't trust Cas to carry Sam around without dropping him, and Sam didn't trust Dean's hands to not feel tacky and weird because Dean was a hunter and hunters' hands invariably got smeared with gun oil and dead man's blood and all that other fun stuff that came with the job. Maybe that was being precious, but Sam didn't think his concerns were _too_ unreasonable.

They were at an impasse.

"Look, dude, I wash my hands just like every good American citizen," Dean said when Sam shied away from his outstretched palm for the second time.

"I know you do," Sam said. He didn't have to yell, because Dean was leaning over him, one arm crossed over his chest, pointedly ignoring Cas's existence while he bored into his brother with his bright green eyes. The smell exuding from his '80s-era leather jacket was thick and heavy, compared to Castiel's more understated scent. "I just know they won't _stay_ that way."

"You are such a girl," Dean complained. "You'll let God's specialest angel chauffeur you around, but not your own brother?"

"I know his hands are clean!" Which was maybe getting them away from the real point—namely, that Castiel's hands felt comfortable, and _safe—_ but Sam would sooner be mauled to death by a ghoul than reveal that.

"Well _excuse_ me, princess. I'll go get a throne chair for your finely discriminating ass." Dean turned away, his back an enormous moving wall as he began rummaging through the cupboards. Probably looking for the dumbest-looking receptacle he could find; Sam hoped the witch didn't own any clown-themed cereal bowls, or he was in trouble. Sulking, he directed his gaze past the spice rack, at the plastic pumpkin that sat in the center of the island. It was filled to the brim with orange candies, each foil-wrapped shape bigger than his entire body.

He was just contemplating what it would be like to eat one of them and whether he would survive the attempt when Dean returned. What he had was better than a clown bowl, but not by much. Sam threw up his arms, pantomiming at Dean. _Really? A **cup**?_

Dean grinned. "You were expecting an actual throne?" He tipped the lip of the waxy paper cup towards Sam. "Driver picks the vehicle, passenger shuts his cakehole." Sam rolled his eyes.

Of course, things stopped being hilarious when he realized someone was going to have to actually _put_ him in the cup. He tried not to tremble— _too_ much, anyway—as the fingers that had been wrapped around him tightened by slow, nearly imperceptible degrees; and then his feet were dangling over the football field that was the kitchen island as Cas lifted him into the air, cool as a cucumber, and set him down inside.

As unappealing as it looked from the outside, the cup turned out to not be a bad fit at all. Sam found he could stretch out fully in it, and the waxy texture of the surrounding walls was interesting but not unpleasant. Even so, he missed the soft warmth of Castiel's hands.

With surprising gentleness, Dean lifted the cup. "You okay in there, Sammy?" he asked, looking relieved when Sam gave him a thumbs up. They moved into the den.

"So what's the plan?" Dean said. "We track down this witch, twist her arm 'til she says uncle?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes," Castiel replied. "We must find this Luna Lovegood."

A snicker burst from Dean's lips. "Great idea, Cas. Say, why don't you go check out that book over there?" Sam peered over the lip of the cup, blew hair off his forehead in irritation when he saw Dean was pointing at the Harry Potter book from earlier.

"I was looking at that," Cas said, voice earnest, apparently oblivious of the context for Dean's sharklike grin. "Her name appeared several times. We may find clues to her whereabouts in there."

"Don't listen to him, Cas," Sam said. "The witch's name isn't Luna. Dean's just being a dick."

"What was that, your Majesty?" Dean said, holding up his hand to his ear in a gesture disturbingly reminiscent of Hulk Hogan, back when they were kids and Dean used to follow wrestling matches on the motel cable. "I couldn't hear over the sound of you being three inches tall and sitting in a Dixie cup."

Sam decided he was better off ignoring him. This was going to be his existence for a while, after all. "Cas, can you get me up on that shelf?" he asked, stretching to his full—unimpressive—height and pointing out one of the bookshelves mounted on the wall, this one filled to bursting with old magazines and periodicals.

"Hey, _hey_ ," Dean said in agitation as the angel came towards him. "What are you doing?"

Cas lowered his arms. "Sam wants to search through the books."

"What are you, his interpreter?"

Castiel's patience was at an end. "In the interim, yes," he said, and before Dean could get a word out in protest he had plucked the Sam-occupied cup between two fingers and laid it on its side on the tallest shelf. It was a testament to Castiel's angelic hand-eye coordination that Sam didn't once feel dizzy or disoriented. "Dean, it's obvious," the angel went on, as Dean sputtered like a stalled car engine. "At Sam's size, he's not going to be able to communicate with you from a distance unless he's shouting. I'm the only one who can understand him. You'll just have to make peace with the fact that I'm not _beyond useless_." He deliberated a moment, then added: "Princess."

Sam crawled out of the cup, just in time to catch the absolutely satisfying sight that was Dean's mouth snapping closed.

* * *

Thirty minutes later, they were still searching for clues. It was a sure bet that the witch wouldn't be coming home anytime soon—at least, wouldn't be coming home that night—and yet nothing more useful had emerged other than some beauty tips for the care of long hair in one of the dozens and dozens of magazines that had been packed into the bookcase (and which Sam quickly and discreetly committed to memory before Dean could catch him). Sam's sleeves were rolled up and he was covered in ink up to his elbows; he had gone over each shelf painstakingly, pulling out fliers for events that had long since come and gone, scraps of paper with what looked like ingredient lists for relatively harmless spellwork, and a truckload (from his unique perspective, anyway) of local LGBT community literature.

Dean wagged his eyebrows at the last. "Hey, maybe she's got a girlfriend," he said, tipping Sam a suggestive wink. Then his perky expression darkened as his eyes fell on a pile of trade paperbacks bearing the _Supernatural_ series title. "Oh, of course she would have _these_ fucking things," he said, viciously kicking it down like it was a tower of Jenga blocks. "I don't even know this chick, and already I hate her."

"That's because you're prejudiced against witches," Sam said, returning to a checklist he had formed of places the witch might have retreated to, fashioned from the tip of a Papermate mechanical pencil and a scrap of notepad paper Castiel had helpfully set aside for him. So far he had narrowed his choices down to an open and affirming Christian church not ten minutes away by car, the Chapel Hill Public Library, and a gourmet bakery/coffee shop on the corner. He was placing his bets on the coffee shop; he knew it was the one place _he'd_ want to be, as North Carolina was plenty chilly in late October and hot java would be in high demand.

"I don't know what you said and I don't care."

Cas chimed in. "Sam said you are a bigot."

Dean transferred his scowl from the scattered books to them. "A bigot against witches?" he repeated disdainfully. "Sammy, do you even listen to yourself? You heard what that demon said. Witches are whores: period. There was a _reason_ I went after her. I mean, before she went all black-eyed even fucking Ruby was—"

He stopped himself just in time, his entire body going as tense as a bullwhip. Cas evinced no reaction, but Sam felt the room's temperature drop, as if a pair of invisible wings had suddenly snapped open, displacing particles of air and exchanging what little humidity remained for pure ice. The young hunter averted his gaze from both of his companions, his chest aching as if he'd been hexed all over again. Far below him on the floor, he could delineate faint cracks in the wood. Some idle portion of his mind considered that, if the witch's spell had been just a little stronger, he'd be small enough to fall into them and disappear.

A building-sized shape framed by tan cloth and a dark blue tie moved into his line of vision, obliterating the dismal view. The shape lowered slightly and then Sam was looking into deep blue eyes for the second time that day; a second time that he didn't deserve, any more than he deserved a second chance. He selfishly clung to that sight anyway, letting himself think nothing at all, as huge unblinking eyes regarded him with a calmness that seemed to still his very heartbeat.

"Sam?" Castiel said softly. His voice was always soft, but now it seemed to bear some other quality that Sam couldn't put a name to. Sam mustered a weak smile.

"I know," he said. "I'm sorry, Cas. About everything."

Cas's head tipped forward. Slender dark spikes of hair brushed against the magazines, close enough that if the young hunter stepped forward they would be brushing his face. He forced himself not to move an inch. "Why are you apologizing to me?" Castiel asked.

A laugh caught in Sam's throat: not bitter, but one of genuine amusement. "Well, what have I done recently that you think I should be apologizing for?"

"Sam," Cas said again. The moment of stillness held for just a bit longer. Then he turned away, revealing the huge slope of his shoulder, over which Sam could make out Dean's crossed arms and closed expression. "I sensed no signs of hex bags or other dark magicks when I entered this household," he told his brother dutifully. "Whatever power this witch has, it was drawn peacefully, from the earth itself." Now that he was no longer looking at Sam, his stare was severe. "Dean, you acted in haste."

Dean uncrossed his arms. "Great," he said, but there was a note of relief in his voice now that the conversation had passed beyond the scope of demons that had once been witches and Apocalypses that shouldn't have happened but had all the same. "The reprobate angel is giving me a lecture. You want I should put on my dunce cap and sit in the corner?"

Castiel held his stare, and Sam sighed, fully breaking the bubble of tension (and also of calm). "Look, at some point we're going to have to stop," he sighed. "Right now it's ten o'clock. Before we got caught up in this shrinking mess, there was an actual case we were working on."

Cas repeated his words to Dean.

"But we didn't have any leads before the witch," Dean protested. He drew right up next to Sam and poked a finger into his chest. "And anyway, how are you supposed to work a case when you look like a Munchkin's understudy?"

"I don't know, but we can't make it less important than what's happening to me. We're hunters; we have our priorities."

"Those people aren't dead," Dean said. Then, morosely: "Yet."

"I can see that I'm going to have to be briefed on the details," Castiel said.

Dean rolled his eyes to the ceiling. " _Briefed_ , he says. Dude, it's a simple salt and burn, not a CIA operation." Castiel frowned at him. "Problem is, we haven't turned up a single weird death in the town archives, and other than Stevie Nicks here, there wasn't a supernatural _anything_ to account for why people were suddenly disappearing all over Hicksville."

"We didn't actually suspect _her_ , though," Sam clarified. "I mean, we never had a reason to. The witch was running a mail-order tea shop out of her home. From what we've gathered, she's very knowledgeable about herbs and medicinal plants, and people all over the country rave about her teas; they're great for curing just about any low-level ailment. So essentially she's human, but with one foot always in the door of the supernatural. We just thought she might—know something." He gave Dean a sidelong glance of annoyance, but the older (and for once, bigger) Winchester shrugged.

"Hey, the chick ran. That's an admission of guilt in my book."

"She ran because you scared her," Sam said, but before they could drag that dead horse out to beat it some more Cas was interrupting.

"Either way, it all goes back to Stevie Nicks," he said, and while Dean was still struggling to pick himself up off the floor from laughing too hard, he went on: "If we find her, we can restore Sam to his rightful size and locate the missing people."

"Yeah. I guess in the end, you're right," Sam said. "Although her name isn't Stevie, either, Cas."

Castiel looked more resigned than surprised. "Because Dean is a dick," he ventured blandly.

"Hey!" Dean scrambled to his feet with an injured expression.

Sam quietly chose to return to his investigation of the bookshelf, leaving his brother and his brother's angel to hash out any remaining differences in opinion. At length he realized that he hadn't yet searched behind the carnival glass paperweight in the shape of a fire-breathing dragon, situated at one end of the lowest shelf. Taking care not to look down (either at the floor, or at the cracks that were in the floor), he knelt and gripped the purpleheart platform beneath him with both hands, carefully lowering one foot to find purchase on the shelf beneath.

Of course, being a Winchester, he had a Winchester's luck; and before he could even get his rope-free rappelling act fully underway, a pained breath punched out of his chest as one of the fingers on his left hand shifted to find a better grip and immediately impaled itself on a stray piece of wood. Before his brain could reassert control over his body he was operating off pure stupid instinct, snatching his hand back like he'd touched a hot stove. The end result was that he completely overbalanced, the leg he'd lowered kicking out and dislodging something from the lower shelf; from there it was just a hop, skip and a jump to total freefall.

 _Well, shit._

Castiel was moving before Sam could register the moment he'd started; one second the angel was telling Dean he was older than protozoa and he'd like to be treated better than such and the next he was practically flying—maybe _literally_ flying—to the bookshelf, tan trenchcoat billowing around him like a tent in a tornado. Sam experienced one perfect moment of disorientation as his view of the entire room—already too big, too overwhelming for his fragile senses—flipped upside down, the blood rushing to his skull like he'd imbibed an entire box of wine inside of ten seconds, and so he saw the hands before they caught him, flooded him with warmth once more. His heart thudded in his ears as his eyes met a sight he'd never known before: that of Castiel's intensely worried stare.

"Sam!" Dean's voice was too loud, and within the next second his brother was there as well; the look of horror on his face was much more familiar. "Sam, what the hell'd you do to yourself?"

Castiel just kept peering down at Sam, looking almost lost. Sam wanted to apologize for whatever it was that had put that expression on his face, before it finally transitioned by slow degrees into the angel's usual intractable frown; the young hunter watched as brows lowered and lips tightened and eyes narrowed with disapproval, like a wooden doll being manipulated by an inexperienced puppeteer. "Sam, I thought this would have been obvious to you, but apparently I was wrong," he chided. "This environment presents much more of a danger to you at your size. You should be more careful."

"Listen to your mother," Dean exhorted, less restrained in his fear. "Next time you wanna play Indy Jones, you _tell_ one of us, Junior."

Sam heard their words, recognized them for the sound advice they represented. Still, his mind was having a bitch of a time catching up, stuck as it was on the idea that there might be two Castiels and he wasn't sure which one was real. He blearily cast his gaze about to see what had happened to the thing he'd kicked off the shelf as he made his none-too-heroic swan dive. His eyes landed on a matchbook that was— _what else_ —the shade of eggplant, and about as big as him, nestled on the other side of the valley of Castiel's cupped hands. The words printed across the book's side swum around for several moments, but presently they rearranged themselves into a phrase that he could read.

 _Dragon's Lair Bar and Karaoke House._

"I got it," he murmured, a lazy smile slipping onto his lips. "I know where she is."

"Cas, look at his hand," Dean said suddenly.

"I see it." Castiel's skin rippled with movement and Sam became faintly aware of his hand—it was bleeding and stuck through with a piece of purpleheart, pencil-thin but no less painful; and when had _that_ happened, anyway?—being grasped between fingerpads bigger than his head.

"You see the matchbook?" Sam said, and he could have barked with laughter at how—for maybe the first time in the history of forever—Dean and Cas were of one mind, the exact same expression of confusion passing over their faces. "Guys, I know where the witch is going to be. Check the bottom shelf. Right as I was falling I saw them, dozens of them—"

"The only thing we're checking right now is your hand," Dean said with a scowl. "Sam, you could have _died_. Does that mean nothing to you?"

Sam giggled. Dean looked at Castiel.

"Cas, what the hell?"

"He's delirious. He fell too far, too quickly." Cas's voice was unusually rough. "He needs time to recover. Perhaps some water, as well."

Dean turned to go into the kitchen, only too happy to be useful in some way. _Stay, stay with me_ , Sam wanted to cry out, but the world still had a furry, overbright appearance and it was too hard to move with his hand swallowed up between Castiel's fingers. Dean paused at the kitchen threshold with his thumbs hooked into his jeans, as if able to read his younger brother's thoughts. Which probably he could.

"He went down faster than a hooker, I'll give you that much," he muttered. The dark landscape that was his back seemed to radiate a reluctant species of relief and gratitude. "Okay, you know what, I take back everything I said. You stay on him, Cas. You make a way better babysitter than I do." Having accomplished the closest thing he had to an apology, he disappeared into the kitchen.

"I will not let this happen again," Castiel promised. Sam was touched by this display of newfound trust and understanding between Dean and the angel, and so he was completely unprepared when Castiel's fingertips pressed together, plucking out the offending piece of wood. He yelped. Then Dean was back, descending on him with a thumbnail-sized scrap of handkerchief, which he pressed against Sam's hand until it stopped bleeding. A bottle cap filled with water was lifted to his lips, and after he had drained it Dean got to work softly rubbing away the ink on his arms with a second piece of handkerchief.

"Thanks, Dean," Sam said quietly.

"Yeah, well." Dean set the scraps of cloth aside. "You pull a stunt like this again, I'm kicking your ass. Never mind that I'd have to use my toe to do it."

It didn't take very long for Sam to start feeling more like himself again, and once he did, he almost wished he'd remained incoherent. He felt embarrassed, like someone who'd been drinking too much and loudly volunteering all of his unwanted opinions to his friends (so basically, Dean any night of the week). He attempted to cut through the swath of fussing Cas and Dean were putting up over him by jumping straight to his discovery.

"I caught a glimpse as I fell," he said, turning the matchbook up to show the name of the establishment. "There were a bunch of them—most of them empty. I'd bet a lot of money the person who lives here is a regular at the Dragon's Lair."

"Sabrina is a drinker _and_ a smoker?" Dean looked at the small purple cache on the shelf, nonplussed. "Doesn't that, like, break every rule in the Wiccan Bible? Strict vegetarianism, ownership of at least ten cats, no partaking of any elements that would _defile the holy temple of the body_?" Sam could practically see the little finger quotes even though Dean didn't move his hands.

"That sounds more like Mormonism," Castiel admitted. "Except for the cats."

"It's not as surprising as you'd think," Sam said. "Our witch is a recent college graduate. From the University of North Carolina, actually. She probably can't even think about those loan debts without picking a poison."

Castiel raised an eyebrow at that expression, while Dean said "Oh," nodding like he wasn't a high school dropout and would know anything about that. Then he grinned. "Hey, good thing you left before Stanford could bill you, huh, Sammy?"

"I had a full scholarship, you jerk," Sam muttered.

It had to have said something that Dean didn't shoot back with the predictable insult. Either that, or he just hadn't heard Sam. "Okay, well, the hours written here say it doesn't open until seven tonight," he said, smoothly changing the subject. "So what do we do in the meantime?"

Sam's life had to have been some kind of television show—a sitcom, that was—because it was at that moment that his stomach chose to growl. Loudly.

"Sam is hungry," Cas reported. The young hunter nearly blushed at how much more he felt like a baby right now, and Cas and Dean like his parents. "He should have something to eat."

"Good idea. Only I don't trust anything on the menu in this place. Water is one thing, but real food? Thanks, but no thanks. I'm not in the mood for eye of newt—or arugula." Dean wrinkled his nose. Then his face brightened. "Say, why don't you pick out a place for us, Sam? You had to have found something good in one of those magazines."

"Actually, I did," Sam said.

Maybe he couldn't have a drink now—or at all, given his current lightweight status—but he thought he could have the next best thing.

* * *

The coffee shop was only a few blocks away, so they left the Impala in the driveway and ventured into the October chill. Castiel held the cup with Sam inside, who wrapped one of Dean's handkerchiefs tighter around himself for warmth. Dean hadn't wanted the angel to bamf them over to the store to save time, and despite himself Sam had to agree with that decision; he could see now that there was a terrible privilege in being this small, in seeing nature's mosaic down to its every last, exacting detail. The dramatic autumnal views flew by at a breathtaking clip, children in too-big overalls chasing each other over the leaf-strewn meadows of a neighborhood playground while the sun shone overhead like a yellow frisbee, the air scented with crisp apples, the light bright and clean on his face. Along the sidewalks people could be seen congregating in hats and sweaters of all makes and shades, just walking their dogs or walking with each other; many of them stopped to wave and Sam nearly waved back, forgetting that they weren't waving at him and that he wasn't supposed to be seen. He lost count of the number of leaves that came floating out of the trees towards him, their burnished colors popping in the interplay of light and shadow, creating the most stunning rainbows he'd ever seen. A stray leaf with pointed edges like a star landed in his cup and he snatched it to himself, feeling for the first time like he'd been given a gift: a gift that he never, ever could have dared to ask for, nor deserved.

Dean, as Sam's brother, had a contractual obligation to ruin the mood when and wherever he could do so. He made a face at the coffee shop as it came into view, as festively decked out for the season as any Christmas tree store in December. "Fucking fantastic, Sam," he complained. "You could have taken us anywhere and you chose _this_ hickster dump?"

 _Hickster_ was Dean's portmanteau of _hipster_ and _hick_ , and it sounded just about as dumb as Dean thought it was brilliant. He looked at the specials blackboard some enterprising soul had placed on the sidewalk, glaring at it as if his stare had the power to make the earth open up and swallow it for daring to displease him. The blackboard was scored with lines of orange chalk depicting jack o' lanterns, and a scarecrow listed bonelessly over the entire thing, grinning at them without teeth. Dean looked at Castiel and Sam, appalled.

"I'd be doing the whole town a favor if I salt and burned that sucker right now. Cutesy or not, that ain't right."

"Dean, please," Sam muttered to no one, pinching the bridge of his nose. He thought the witch's house had been overdoing it on the pumpkin scent, but now he feared for the state of his sensitive nostrils as he noted that each of the day's drink specials listed pumpkin as a major ingredient.

Dean was even less impressed as they passed through the doorway and were greeted with an even cheesier profusion of kid-friendly Halloween decorations, one of which featured a (what Sam thought was) very creative display of gel stickers on the window facing the street, arranged into a row of graves with punny names and tongue-in-cheek epitaphs.

"HERE LIES CLAIRE VOYANT," Dean read off of one grave in the voice he reserved for reciting Latin exorcisms. "SHE SHOULD HAVE SEEN IT COMING. Oh my _gawd_ , it does not get more hickstery than this."

"Stop using that word," Sam hissed. Then he remembered that Dean couldn't hear him. Granted, it was hard to hear anything over the small roar of patrons conversing in thick Southern accents and coffee orders being called out and laptop-bearing students working on their theses; Sam felt the noise level was better suited for a gladiator coliseum. Cas tilted his head, considering.

"Claire Voyant. It's a play on words," he said, somewhat proudly. "As is the word _hickster_." Dean gagged.

The rest of the indoor decor left a bit to be desired. The other decorations that had been hung from the ceiling and pasted to the walls ran to a more pedestrian imagination: leaves fashioned from golden foil, plastic spiders that wouldn't have fooled a toddler, and thick reams of cotton webbing. A line of customers wrapped around the tables and along the glass displays, terminating near the door. Sam was sure he wouldn't be able to see the pastries behind the glass even if he was his normal six foot four self. As it was, Cas was making it even tougher for him.

"Cas, you really don't have to do that," he complained, trying in vain to pry Castiel's fingers apart so he could get a better look around. The angel was covering the cup with one hand—and by extension, Sam's head—and seemed loath to give the young hunter any wiggle room.

"If someone saw you, there could be a panic," Castiel said. His eyes were traveling sharply back and forth across the crowd, and it took Sam a moment to realize he was tracking exit routes. "And there are so many people here, I don't know that you'd be adequately protected."

Dean looked green. "Don't say that."

"Cas, it's _fine_." Castiel relented by lifting his fingers half a millimeter. Sam sighed. "Okay, how about this? Just... put me in your pocket or something. A Dixie cup is going to look out of place in a coffee house anyway."

"What's he saying?" Dean demanded. "Cas, is he saying something crazy?"

"Not as crazy as you'd think," Castiel said quietly. "And _I_ would certainly feel better. All right, Sam. We'll try your idea."

The last thing Sam heard was an angry squawk from Dean, and then he was rolling down the gently sloping walls of the cup, coming to a soft landing in Castiel's palm. The angel's fingers closed brusquely around him, submerging him in darkness. Sam was vaguely aware of movement after that, reminiscent of the vibrations felt traveling on an elevator; it was amazing, really, how quickly he'd adjusted to being moved around like that. Eventually the fingers gave, and Sam found himself in a soft enclosure scented with cologne and leather. He was pretty sure Cas didn't wear cologne, and that angels didn't keep their own wallets, so he supposed he had Jimmy to thank for that.

After that, Sam struggled to find footing. The floor wasn't really a floor, and every time he thought he was getting somewhere his foot would slip and he'd somehow slide down even further into the pocket. With every passing second he felt more and more like a kid again, being wrapped up in motel sheets while Dean challenged him to find a way out.

"Sam?" Cas's voice called down to him. "Are you all right?"

"Getting there," Sam huffed. He was trying to angle the wallet so that he'd have something approaching a firm foothold. The metaphors to describe his situation were progressively breaking down; somehow _swimming in jello_ didn't quite cut it. He flailed uselessly for a few more seconds before Castiel's fingers appeared, steadying him. Sam clung to them, using his feet to push the wallet down until it became a solid floor. At length he pushed off and sat on the floor he'd made, testing its solidity, and the fingers retreated.

"Thanks, Cas," Sam said. He was sweating. He realized that he had no idea how he was supposed to get himself or his clothes cleaned at this size. He could only pray that they'd find the witch soon and she would turn him back before hygiene became a serious concern.

From somewhere beyond the enclosed space he was in, he heard Cas telling Dean that his brother was all right. Everything—from the thin light filtering down through the pocket's opening, to the indistinct roar of coffee being ground—felt muted and soft inside Jimmy Novak's pocket. A feeling of calm descended on him, only helped along by the gentle sway of the coat as Castiel proceeded slowly through the line. He could fall asleep here, if he wasn't careful.

Unfortunately, that was exactly what he ended up doing.

Sam came awake slowly when he realized Cas was speaking to him. _Stupid_ , he thought. How much time had gone by? He'd just meant to rest his eyes for a few minutes...

"Sam." Castiel said his name again. He sounded panicked. "Sam!"

Sam snapped into full consciousness at that. He pulled himself into a standing position and nearly leaped to reach the top of the pocket. His hand instinctively went for the gun in his waistband, even though he knew it was being generous to say that it would have about as much effect on a bad guy as a BB gun.

What he saw at first confused him. There was nothing in the way of Apocalyptic pandemonium. If anything, they were almost at the head of the line; Sam had a perfect view of pumpkin donuts and pumpkin scones and pumpkin cheesecake, among other artery-clogging delights. Then his chest emptied in a rush as he came to a crucial realization: Dean was nowhere in sight.

Sam took a deep breath. "Cas, where is—"

"Sam, I'm next," Castiel said. Sam looked up; he couldn't make out the angel's face from this angle, but the set of Castiel's jaw looked positively stiff with terror. "I have to order something. I—"

"Sir, who are you talkin' to?"

Sam ducked back into the pocket as the male barista's thickly accented voice washed over him, indicating that he was very near. Again his senses went back into soft focus, as if he were underwater or somewhere far beneath the earth. He could feel Castiel shaking, though; he cursed himself for letting his guard down like that, for not figuring it out sooner. It made just as much sense for him to protect Cas as it did for Cas to protect him.

"Okay, Cas, don't panic," he said, hoping his voice was calm enough to cut the angel's anxiety. "Ordering food is easy. Humans do it all the time."

Castiel said nothing, which was logical, because he wasn't supposed to be talking to anyone, much less a tiny man hidden in his pocket. "Um, okay, never mind," the barista said, no doubt quelling over the force of Castiel's petrified stare, which was more often than not identical to his _pissed-off angel of the Lord_ stare. "What can I get for y'all?"

"Y'all?" Castiel was instantly confused, and a little suspicious. "I'm the only..."

"It's a regional expression. It doesn't mean anything. Order a sandwich," Sam advised. He felt helpless; he couldn't see the menu at all from here, or otherwise he'd be doing more than sitting here being a useless lump. To hell with the height difference; he was going to murder Dean when he saw him. He was going to _murder_ —

Cas abruptly switched tracks. "I would like a sandwich."

"Okay," the barista said. "What kind of sandwich?"

"What kind?" Cas repeated helplessly.

"Er, yeah," the barista said. Then, maybe hoping to get the queue moving again, or maybe just herd the stranger with the thousand-yard stare away from him, he added: "Y'know, the day's special is really good..."

"All right," Castiel said, continuing to sound as stiff as the board outside. "I will have the day's special."

"Home fries or hash browns with that?"

"Home fries," Castiel said without prompting, maybe because that was the first thing mentioned.

There was a long pause. "That also comes with a coffee," the barista said.

"Yes, I read," Castiel said. He was starting to sound pissed off, which sometimes happened when he felt that someone was intentionally making him look foolish.

"Er, great. So what kind of coffee—"

"Tall pumpkin spice. Hot, black," Sam interjected beneath the barista's voice, before Cas actually got mad enough to smite him for complicating something as simple as a request for sustenance. Cas repeated Sam's words in clipped tones. The barista gave him the total, and then Sam was feverishly trying to pry Jimmy's wallet open to hand Castiel the appropriate number of bills. It was hard going, and the angel's fingers felt almost clammy when the young hunter finally pushed a ten into them.

To Sam's relief, Cas put the change in his other pocket. He could just feel the angel beginning to turn away when the barista suddenly said: "May I fill up your cup for you?"

Sam could imagine a vein pulsing in Cas's forehead. "Fill it... up?" he said, as much to get an answer from Sam as to confirm what he'd heard. Sam himself was baffled, until—

"The Dixie cup!" he said. "Cas, he wants to fill it with water."

"Why would..." And oh dear God, Castiel was going to smite this poor guy, right in broad daylight. "No," the angel said, sounding resolute for the first time since beginning this terrible exchange. "No, you will not touch the cup."

There was a beat of silence, during which the barista was probably questioning his life choices. "Uhhh, okay," he said. "No problem. Here's your receipt. Y'al... _you're_ number thirteen."

"Thirteen?" Cas repeated. For one horrible moment Sam thought he was going to dispute the entire transaction, given that angels would have their own superstitions regarding certain numbers. But instead Castiel just sighed with disgust and said, "Of course," and then they were moving again.

Sam let out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding the entire time. Castiel made it to the table without incident, and then there was a shifting like the movement of tectonic plates before an earthquake as he fell into a chair. Sam poked his head out of the pocket again, just enough to see that the angel had chosen a table for two in the corner, where he most likely wouldn't be noticed.

"Hey," he whispered. Castiel looked down at him, more exhausted than he'd seen him since... well, ever. "You did good, Cas."

"That was the opposite of good," Castiel muttered, but he sounded strangely grateful for the reassurance. "That cashier was—irritating."

"Sounded like he was a college kid," Sam said. "You gotta cut him some slack. He was just as scared of you as you were of him. I should know—I've worked more than a few customer service jobs in my lifetime." He remembered meeting Jess briefly at one of them, making a mess of her Cinnabon order even as he made a tongue-tied jackass of himself, but sharing that probably wouldn't be helpful right now.

"I wasn't _scared_ ," Cas insisted, and Sam didn't even try to stop the smile that broke open over his face.

* * *

Dean didn't come back—not even ten minutes later, when number thirteen was called and Cas awkwardly shuffled to the counter to get the daily special sandwich and coffee. The throngs of people had thinned somewhat, and so Castiel judged it safe enough to take Sam out of his pocket and set him down by his right hand on the table, concealing him from the view of any strangers while affording Sam a glimpse of the people passing by the window.

People watching had always been one of Sam's favorite activities: both in the past, and now. At first his dad had tried to put a hunter's spin on it, teaching him to hone it as a means of picking out unnatural behavior in crowds ( _what's unnatural is often supernatural, son_ was a favorite saying of John's), but Sam still had an imagination, and it often ran wild even as he was trying to remain as hunt-focused as possible. Now, as he sat nursing a bottle cap filled with strong hot coffee and a tiny portion of spinach, egg whites, and turkey bacon, he sketched stories for each of the people walking down the sidewalk: longsuffering single moms, businessmen yelling on their cellphones, socialites plugged into the latest and greatest electronic devices. He hadn't done anything like this since Stanford with Jess, whose flights of fancy tended towards the cynical and twisted (but frankly hysterical), and he'd certainly never done it with Ruby.

"I don't understand," Castiel said, breaking into an internal dialogue Sam had developed for a teenaged couple sitting on the bench across the street, their arms gesticulating wildly and mouths moving a million miles a minute. Sam looked up to see him peering around the shop, his food left uneaten on his plate.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"I don't understand the purpose of these things." Sam realized Castiel was referring to the decorations. "There was a time I once did, centuries ago. But what I don't understand is why you continue to cling to these traditions, when you lack even the wisdom now to fear monsters."

It seemed to be bothering him very much. Sam considered.

"I couldn't tell you why we stick with the decorations, Cas," he said. "I guess... people just get sentimental. For the old days." Castiel looked at him questioningly. "Even if it's just missing the point, we like to carry on with certain things, because that's just the way it's always been done. Like celebrating Columbus Day."

Surprisingly, Castiel seemed to accept that answer. His gaze was drawn to where Sam had been looking out the window, fell upon the teenaged couple. Sam couldn't begin to imagine what the angel was thinking, but it had to be worlds apart from what was going on in the young hunter's own mind. So often he'd thought of Castiel as alien—unreachable—but just when he thought any kind of connection between them was hopeless, Cas would inevitably throw him a lifeline, resurrecting his faith all over again.

"Cas, you're not eating," he said, giving what he hoped was a gentle nudge. "This whole sandwich wasn't for me, you know."

Castiel's frown returned, deepened. He looked down at the sandwich and fries like they might come to life and attack him. Then, to Sam's surprise, he picked up the whole wheat croissant and bit into it with an eagerness nearing viciousness. Although he chewed carefully, crumbs still littered the front of his suit jacket, and he brushed them down with an irritated sweep of his hand. Within two minutes half of the sandwich was gone. Castiel set it down and honed in on the fries, popping each greasy cube into his mouth, barely stopping for breath (not that he needed it, but still). It was honestly kind of fascinating, watching an angel discover breakfast for the first time.

Castiel continued to eat with relish. The more he enjoyed it—and it certainly seemed that he did—the more miserable he looked.

Sam's stomach gave a terrible lurch as it hit him: the angel was _hungry_. And therefore, more human.

 _This is **your** fault._

"Hey," he murmured. He didn't expect to be heard, but Castiel paused to look down at him anyway. There was a crumb stuck to his cheek. "How's the sandwich?"

Cas stared at what was left of it. "Brown," he said finally. "With a flaky constitution. Sam, I don't—"

Sam had to bite off a laugh in spite of his heartache. "No. I mean, how do you like it?"

Castiel thought for a long moment—probably as seriously as he considered questions of battle strategy in Heaven. "It's good," he said. "Jimmy would have preferred a hamburger, but I... I quite like this."

"How... how is Jimmy?" Sam asked this weakly, and with more than a little guilt. Among other things, being addicted to demon blood had made him a dick.

"Sleeping," Cas said. "Normally I would have asked for his help with something as complicated as... _that_..." His eyes flicked over to the counter, where the barista was conspicuously absent, then back to Sam. "...but he found your predicament so amusing that he was distracting me. Otherwise, he's doing as well as can be expected under his circumstances. As are you," he added, his expression heavy with meaning as it lingered on Sam.

"Oh," Sam said. "No, Cas. I'm not... don't get me wrong, this is no picnic for me, but I'll be fine. Eventually." He couldn't imagine what it was like, to be an angel turning into a human, the feeling of growing weaker and smaller and more alone with each passing day.

Castiel, at least, did not seem concerned with himself. "Humans are already so helpless," he said. "I can only imagine how much more so when you are the size of a cockroach. At least with Jimmy, I know I can keep him safe."

"Gee, Cas." Sam shuddered at the imagery. "Thanks."

Castiel was not accustomed to hearing sarcasm directed at him—at least, not from Sam. "You're welcome," he said, picking up the small section of sandwich and demolishing it in three quick bites.

He didn't seem to notice the crumb on his face. Sam couldn't help it; that kind of thing had always driven him nuts, and the more he insisted Dean use a napkin like a civilized person in the past the more his older brother had stubbornly resisted (often with a shit-eating grin). "You, ah, you got a little something on your cheek, Cas." The angel looked at him blankly. Then, without thinking: "Here, let me..."

He really had no idea what he had been expecting. One second Castiel's face was a safe distance away, and the next it was practically on top of him, filling up every last inch of his vision, radiating incredible warmth. It didn't matter that he'd grown used to being touched and held by Castiel in the last few hours, or that Castiel moved with a slowness deferential to Sam's size; there was simply no getting used to something that impossibly _big_. The young hunter drew a breath from lungs that seemed to have shriveled to twin raisins.

Castiel, for his part, waited patiently for Sam to do whatever he needed to do, his eyes closed softly, most likely so he wouldn't intimidate Sam. The image of a lion once more sprang into Sam's mind, and it gave him courage. So, despite the fact that it was incredibly foolish (much like himself), he stood up and lifted his arm, allowed his hand to sink into the soft surface right above the angel's pearl-pink lips.

And it _was_ soft. Sam's stomach swooped like that first moment Castiel had lifted him airborne and all he could think about was roller coasters, except somehow this ride felt much less unpleasant. His fingers began moving, almost of their own volition, towards the stupid crumb that had put him in this position, sliding up the endless wall of white skin; they stung as they encountered stubble, but he could barely feel it, his concentration completely narrowed to a pinprick, intent on removing the one flaw to what he was increasingly coming to think of as the perfect face. When his fingers finally closed around it, arm extended as far as it would go, Castiel's lips separated with the slightest of breaths.

Sam froze. He was trembling, not from fear now, but... something _else_. His blood burned with the heat of the angel's breath on his entire body. He knew that Castiel hadn't meant to do that, didn't need to breathe, so something must have startled it out of him. He remembered that utterly lost look as the angel peered down at him, mere hours before. Somehow, just touching Castiel's face had—

Castiel's face? This was _Jimmy's_ face.

Sam got out of there so fast it was a miracle his shoes didn't leave burning track marks.

"I-I got it," he stuttered, words temporarily failing him. "I got the thing."

Castiel drew back slightly, heavy lashes lifting to behold the crumb in Sam's hand. Or maybe just Sam. The young hunter was possessed of the lightning-bolt conviction that his brother's angel knew _exactly_ what was going on in his mind and his gut and that he didn't approve in the slightest. Then Castiel blinked, expression melting back into the picture of innocent confusion, and pinched the crumb between thumb and forefinger.

"Thank you," he said. Sam nodded and sat down hard, trying not to look as if anything was amiss.

"So," he said, when he thought he could speak without his voice cracking like a pimply adolescent's. "How about that coffee?"

Castiel looked at the steaming cup like it was the first time he had ever seen it in his life. Presently, he raised it and took a sip. He grimaced. "It's bitter."

"Crap," Sam said. "That's my fault. I thought it would be okay to take black if it had pumpkin spice in it." Sam didn't mention that he was such a big pumpkin enthusiast that every Halloween Dean threatened to have the words _Pumpkin Spice Life_ tattooed on his forehead in swirly orange letters.

"I don't like it," Cas declared. "Is it always like this?"

"We can get cream and sugar, if you want," Sam said. "They're over by the window."

Cas hesitated, fingers curling and uncurling into his palm. "I shouldn't leave you."

"Dude, just go. I promise you I won't be jumping off any tables for the next two minutes."

"Do you not take yours with additions?"

"I think the word you want is condiments," Sam said. "And no, not really. Haven't for a long time. I guess it's a throwback to Stanford. Jess and I needed straight java just to survive some of those cramming sessions—and a lot of the classes too, come to think of it."

"What was that like?"

Sam frowned. "What was what like?"

"Going to school."

"Oh... I don't know. It was fine. I liked it." For some reason Sam felt foolish. Dad and Dean had never shown any interest in hearing about Sam's years at Stanford—at best it constituted time out of the hunting life, and at worst it was a complete betrayal of the values he'd been brought up to embrace—and he couldn't imagine why Cas would care about this. Especially _now_ , when Sam knew that not only was he never going to relive those times again, he didn't even deserve to enjoy the memory of them. Not when every man, woman and child on the planet still faced uncertain destruction because of him.

Castiel misunderstood the dark expression on his face. "Did you really like it?" he prompted, blue eyes soft and almost sad.

"No." Sam cleared his throat heavily. "That's not it at all. Stanford was great. I missed Dean, and not all of the classes were winners—we had some absolute dud professors—but all my friends were there, and I had Jess. I was happy."

It occurred to him then that he had questions of his own. Questions he'd have been asking Castiel nonstop, had he and his brother been visited by an angel in an alternate universe, where nothing was bad and painful and you could still believe when you closed your eyes at night that angels were watching over you. Where all the stories and drawings and prayers swirling in the vale of dreams could be brought into the light, made to serve a higher purpose. "Say, Cas," he said, taking a tentative sip of his own coffee, hedging in case his question sounded offensive, or downright dumb. "Did _you_ ever go to school?"

"Me?" Castiel blinked in a way that Sam found positively adorable, worrying at his lip. "Yes. I suppose you could call it school." When Sam sat up straight, instantly intrigued, he clarified. "As a seraph, I was destined to be a middle-ranking soldier. So when I was young, I was incorporated into a special unit of seraphim, where I developed the tools I would need to one day lead my own garrison."

And now Sam was _really_ amazed. A wistful, nearly human expression had stolen over the angel's face, and he spoke in tones that were considerably softer than the no-nonsense manner in which he conducted himself day to day.

"It was hard. I didn't always obey, either. I know that's hard for you to believe, but there were times when I would slip away with Anna and Uriel, either to listen to the whales sing or to fly on the thermals with the birds of prey. We were punished for our transgressions, but some part of me still believes it was worth it, to find that kind of escape with my comrades."

"So what you're saying is—" Sam couldn't keep the high, unbelieving delight out of his voice. "You _played hooky_."

Castiel actually smiled at him. Sam pretended his heart didn't do a little flip-flop. "Yes. Is that how you'd put it? We were top achievers and had excellent marks, but we too had... dud professors."

"Man." Sam blew hair off his forehead. "You guys sound just like me and Jess and Brady. People around campus would call us the Three Musketeers. Although our idea of a good time was driving down Highway 101 in Brady's Lexus while arguing about the meaning of life. I was the idealistic geek who knew way too much Bible lore, Brady was a super atheist, and Jess was the voice of agnostic reason. We were just so—so _hopeless_ , back then."

There was a long moment of silence, during which the clinking of cups and plates seemed to fade into irrelevant background noise. Castiel leaned forward, his face nearly close enough to touch again.

"I miss them," he said. There was no emotion in his face now, no inflection to his tone. Sitting there, face resting motionless on his clasped hands, he truly resembled a marble statue. Only his eyes, seared in bright blue shades of pain, revealed anything of the agony Sam knew he must be feeling.

Because they _didn't_ live in a world where Heaven was everything it was cracked up to be, where the herald angels sang and bended near the earth to touch their harps of gold. Uriel was dead, and Anna—even worse off, if what Castiel had told them was true, and by his own hand. Jess was gone, consumed by the flames nearly four years removed. Dean burned in hell for forty years. Castiel was hunted, hated. And Sam himself, so tainted and filled with darkness, a whitewashed tomb fit only for the Devil himself—

 _He's gonna reward you, Sam._

 _I want you to lose my number._

 _You **will** say yes to me._

 _Listen to me, you bloodsucking freak—_

Dean's voice took on a solid, startling clarity at the last. Sam jerked at the thought of those words on his voicemail coming to life—those words he'd never let himself escape from, words he'd listened to over and over again, to remind himself of what he really was—and it took several moments for him to realize that the real Dean had showed up and was talking down at him. He looked up, just in time to catch the none-too-attractive sight of Dean looming over him with pronounced wrinkles of his nose. He smelled heavily of perfume and the collar on his jacket was so rumpled that there could be no mistaking where he'd been.

And yet he _still_ dared to look at Cas as if he was the one who'd done something outrageous. "Dude," he complained, planting his hands on his hips. "I told you to watch Sam, not go on a date with him." Castiel simply returned Dean's withering stare, completely unruffled by his accusation.

"Where the hell have you been?" Sam demanded, only because he wanted to see how Dean would justify himself.

"While you two were exchanging long, loving looks? Gathering some clues for this damn case." Dean slapped down a card for the Dragon's Lair bar, tapped it with one obnoxious finger. Sam noted a female signature and a cell phone number, set off by large loopy drawings of hearts. "I was getting acquainted with one of our witch's _lovely_ little friends, a Maria from the nursing degree program. Turns out Hermione Granger was acting all _kinds_ of weird around the time those innocent folks disappeared. Also, she's at the Dragon's Lair every night at seven on the dot, sobbing into her cups and blasting Lady Gaga. The hunt is on, fellas, and we're scenting for blood."

"And... what? That's it?" Dean nodded, looking far too smug for his meager accomplishment. "Dean, you were gone way longer than the five minutes it would have taken to get that info. What else were you doing?"

Dean's face fell. "I was out getting real food. The McDonald's we passed on the way here was calling my name. Line was way quicker, too."

"Oh, my God." Sam's head sank into his hands.

"Don't be mad just 'cause you missed out," Dean said. "Although, I am a generous and benevolent brother. I brought you a french fry."

He placed a cold, sad, limp yellow straw on the napkin next to Sam. At length Sam raised his head and he met Castiel's eyes, which seemed to glitter with some unspoken understanding, freed from their earlier melancholy.

"Sam," he said. "Would you like me to get you something else?" His voice lowered, the angel's equivalent of a conspiratorial wink. "Something with pumpkin, perhaps?"

"Yeah." And despite all his despair, despite all his hopelessness, Sam still felt his lips stretch into a wide smile, looking up into those deep blue eyes, which seemed to spark with their own hidden pleasure. "Yeah, I'd like that. And I want you to get something for yourself, too. Something with lots of whipped cream and sugar."

He would have all the time in the world later to pity himself. Right now, there was work to do.  
 _  
_"Fucking gag me," Dean said, as Cas's hand descended to scoop Sam up, and they went to make their selections at the counter.


	3. Chapter Three

A/N: The chapter in which my inner video game/musical theatre geek unleashed itself. Spot the references! And remember, comments are love. :)

 _We learn the witch's name, Dean is displeased, and Cas takes up dancing._

* * *

 **A Quantum of Solace**

 **Chapter Three**

Even without the added indignity of being small enough to fit in a cup—where he found himself once again, under the watchful eye of his brother's angel—Sam still felt vaguely like a creeper as the Impala pulled parallel to the sidewalk, a stripe of pockmarked cement framing a series of condemned buildings packed together like sardines and one very long, very menacing-looking alleyway. The clock had just hit seven and the Dragon's Lair was mere minutes away on foot, but Dean had deemed it necessary to hash out a plan of attack before they entered the building proper—and Sam wasn't so sure that Dean hadn't meant the words _plan of attack_ in their most literal form. His eyes tracked back and forth across what he could see of the perimeter through the car windows, noting that no people or vehicles moved on the darkened streets. Then again, this didn't exactly seem like the ideal college student hangout, if the busted streetlamp and prominent NO TRESPASSING signs were any indication. It was probably for the better that no one was around. Dean swung around in the driver's seat to fully face Castiel, whom he had reluctantly allowed to ride shotgun, the irregular drumming of his fingers on the steering wheel betraying his anxiety.

"Now _this_ is the kind of place I like to be around Halloween," he said, and while he was clearly joking, Sam could tell that his older brother didn't feel any better about being here than he did. Which was weird, given that they devoted ninety percent of their waking moments to skulking around in cemeteries looking for graves to desecrate.

Castiel, as per usual, took the comment at face value. "I hardly see why you would," he replied, looking around balefully, as if there was something Dean saw about this run-down part of the city that he, in his capacity as a pure and holy soldier of the Lord, could not. Dean sighed and rolled his shoulders back.

"Anyway, back to what I was saying. What's our plan here?"

When Castiel answered, it was with a solemnity that Sam could almost see stretching back like a shining thread over untold millenia, when the seraph first began running tactical schemes for Heaven's army; it left Sam slightly awed that even something as simple as this fell within his purview. "Our first objective is to disguise ourselves as patrons of the establishment and go inside," he said. "Then, once we locate the witch—"

Dean made a bzzting sound with his teeth that he often used to shut down Sam when he thought his little brother was giving him a history lesson instead of the bare run-down of what they would need to kill the ghostie or the vamp or the fanged/bloodsucking/man-eating fugly of the week. In this case Sam found it particularly douchey, since Cas was just trying to help and there was no way he would have known what the sound represented. "Earth to Major Tom," Dean said. "We're walking into a _karaoke_ bar. Do the words _karaoke_ mean anything to you?"

"Other than that karaoke is _one_ word..." Sam muttered.

Cas ignored Dean's slight against him, thinking it over. His blue eyes seemed to shine in the dark cocoon of the Impala, catching what little light fell from the dying neon sign in the window of the pawn shop across the street. "From what I can tell, _karaoke_ is yet another play on words," he said. "It's a Japanese compound, combining the word for empty— _kara_ —and a truncated form of the word for orches... oh." Even in the darkness, Sam could still see his face slide from battle-hardened impassiveness to unconcealed worry. "Oh, that does present a problem."

"Exactly. We go in there and Sammy hears the first bar of Bad Romance, his itty bitty head'll explode. 'Course, his head would probably explode _anyway._.."

Sam brushed back the same lock of hair that had fallen into his eyes for the twentieth time that night, lamenting that even at three inches tall, some things never changed. "Without the jokes, Dean?"

"It's all right," Cas said, sounding resolute. "You go in, Dean. I'll stay here with Sam."

Dean chuckled. "Fred and Daphne, much?" When Castiel looked confused again and Sam's middle finger rose to the sky, he went on. "That idea's no good either. I'm gonna need a little angelic backup in case the witch decides to pull another hit and run. And we obviously can't leave Sam in the car, so..." He thought for a moment. "Cas, is there any way you can—I dunno—lower the volume on Sam's hearing aid?"

Another moment passed while Cas struggled to translate Dean's request into something he could begin to understand. Then: "That requires a level of precision that I lack, my Grace being what it is."

"Great." Dean fell back heavily in his seat, threw his hands up. "So now we're just a trio of overaged creepoids—one of us _way_ overqualified for that description, by the way—loitering outside a stupid bar."

"Maybe not," Sam said. "Dean, you mentioned a hearing aid. What if I could make something similar to that—something like earplugs?"

Still peeved, Dean swept one arm around the Impala's interior like he was a real estate agent showing a home to a potential buyer. "Do you see a tiny pair of noise-canceling headphones anywhere in here, Sam?"

"Not in _here_ ," Sam snapped, accustomed to his brother's whininess after twenty-plus years but annoyed by it anyway. "In the trunk. I've got some q-tips in my bag. I could use the cotton to plug my ears against any really loud noises."

That actually succeeded in drawing Dean up short, and for a second he just stared at his younger brother, blinking owlishly. "Huh," he finally said. "Never thought those things would actually come in handy. I mean, beyond freeing up all the wax in your head."

Sam shot him a look: _Could you **be** more disgusting?_ But Dean was looking a lot more cheerful now, so that had to count for something.

"What are q-tips?" Cas wondered aloud.

" _What are q-tips_. Can you believe this guy?" Then, throwing a wink to Cas: "Hold on to your wings, buddy, 'cause you're about to discover just what goes into Samantha's beauty routine." He yanked open the driver's side door, practically skipping out in his eagerness to get to the punchline of his joke; Sam shivered and tried to ignore both that and the fact he could see his own breath pluming out between his lips as the door remained open, his brother rooting around in the trunk to find Sam's carefully packed Zip-Loc of toiletries. Dean clambered back in seconds later, slamming the door behind him with a teeth-rattling crash (ironic, considering what they'd just been discussing), triumphantly brandishing a clear plastic baggie stuffed with motel soaps and shampoos, antiperspirant, and a week's worth of q-tips.

It probably wouldn't mean anything to an angel of the Lord. _Probably._ Sam still wanted to melt into the shadows dragging like fingers across the leather seats.

"Tell me the man's not OCD, Cas," Dean said, making a show of slowly pulling out each item and giving it a 360-degree turn for the angel's full inspection. "I keep telling him: who needs two types of conditioner? Unless you're gay or auditioning for a L'Oreal commercial—in which case, I still wouldn't rule out being gay—there's nothing a good ol' Clean Spice 2-in-1 can't handle." He shook his head. "Sometimes I wonder how we're even related."

Sam ground his next words out through his teeth. "If you're done being a dick, Dean..."

"Okay, okay." Dean reached for one of the q-tips at the bottom of the plastic bag. He broke off the end of it and carefully lowered it into the cup; as was his brother's manner, he was much more gentle in his actions than his words, and Sam accepted the hunk of cotton from the enormous, slow-moving fingers without comment. Sam's first thought as his own fingers sunk into it was that it was like handling a piece of cotton candy as big as his head (an image, once again, supplied by his memories of the cape). The young hunter sat down, pushing hair off of his forehead, and set about tearing off tiny shreds from the bulbous mass, until he judged he had enough to stuff comfortably into his ears.

"Do you need help, Sam?" Cas asked him.

From the neutral tone of his voice, he seemed to have absolutely no opinion on Sam's personal hygiene habits. If anything, he was more interested in examining the rest of the q-tip, which Dean had put into his hand as if the angel was a bored child in need of a distraction. "No, I think I've got this, Cas," Sam replied, trying not to sound as relieved as he felt, while Cas twirled the broken q-tip between his fingers over and over again. "Thanks anyway."

Next, Sam began rolling the pieces of cotton into shapes that nearly resembled miniaturized snow balls. He was just fitting both pieces carefully into his ears when Castiel asked, "What does the Q signify?"

Dean arched an eyebrow in confusion. "What does the what mean now?"

"The Q," Cas repeated. "In q-tip."

"What are you, five?" Dean said. Sam glanced up, and the look he saw on Castiel's face flatly read _try five billion_ , or maybe just _you are an insufferable flea but for the sake of my Father I choose to tolerate you anyway_. Admittedly, Sam was no expert at sussing out the variations in Castiel's limited repertoire of facial expressions. "Obviously it stands for... um, uh—wait..."

"Wow. That's a good question, Cas." Sam realized he had no idea, either. He stood up, trying to determine if the earplugs were working properly. He couldn't hear himself very well at all, which was an encouraging sign.

He nearly sat down again and put his head between his knees when Castiel's next question, similarly muffled, penetrated his skull. "And the purpose of these q-tips is to remove obstructions from the ear cavity?"

"Actually, they're not meant to be..." Sam began weakly, but Dean had already recognized his opportunity and pounced.

"Oh, _yeah_ ," he said, and when Sam pivoted around like a whirling dervish, sputtering his outrage, his older brother was sporting a mischievous grin. "Sammy's in the bathroom every morning with those suckers halfway buried in his skull, digging for gold." His face puckered in a strange demonstration of titillated disgust. "One time, I happened to look down into the trash, and there were these two—"

Before Sam could leap out of the cup to attack Dean's face—risk of falling to his death or no, his brother could _not_ be allowed to finish that story—Castiel was interrupting. "I see," he said, speaking with a smoothness that Sam wasn't used to hearing in his voice. "I assume that is why his listening skills are so much better than yours, Dean?"

"I—you—" Dean's face turned an interesting shade of red in the broken shafts of neon light. He pointed an accusing finger in the angel's direction. "You know what, Feathers, screw you. That ain't funny."

"Sam seems to find it funny," Cas continued in his relaxed deadpan. Sam turned around and his face broke into an even wider smile as he recognized the familiar sparkle of amusement in the angel's eyes.

"That was a joke," he said, unbelieving, and a little proud. "Cas, you just made a joke."

The angel's eyes widened and the amused look departed. He seemed even more surprised than Sam. "Oh," he said. "I did."

"Okay, that's it. Both of you—out of my car. _Now_." Dean's face was still tomato-bright as he turned the engine over. "I have to go park Baby, and the last thing she needs is two dicks having a circle-jerk all over her leather."

Cas opened his mouth to ask what that meant, but Sam broke in hurriedly. "Yeah. I think we'd better do what he says, Cas."

"But our plan—"

"It's okay," Sam said, noting that if Dean kept glaring at them they were going to make a lovely pile of ashes on the Impala's passenger seat. "My earplugs seem to be working fine, and, well... we'll just figure something out on the fly, like we always do."

The sudden tightness in Castiel's face suggested that he was no fan of the Winchester _modus operandi_ , but he acquiesced with a nod.

Dean left them standing by the side of the road, the harsh squeal of the tires as the Impala made her exit the lingering evidence that he was a sore loser. Castiel made a disapproving noise and moved to shield Sam from the roar, the vast folds of his sleeve rising to blot out his view of the stars hanging in the dark velvet sky; but Sam's earplugs indeed held, and the noise was only equivalent to the sound of a distant airplane leaving the runway. Castiel began walking.

Within minutes, they were at the entrance to the Dragon's Lair—and really, _entrance_ was the only word Sam could use to describe it. He'd only ever been to Disneyland knockoff amusement parks in the past, never the real thing, but this looked just like the opening to one of those Magic Kingdom dark rides, thematically falling somewhere along the lines of Sleeping Beauty or Snow White or one of those princesses that slept a whole lot. A dragon with a glaring jeweled eye had been carved in imitation wood around the equally imitation stone blocks that made up the building's face, and a long piece of parchment in a spotless glass frame announced the drinks and entrees in fancy cursive script. Still, one significant anachronism managed to mar the illusion of medieval grandeur: sounds of soft rock emanated from behind the closed, ivy-adorned double doors.

"Are you sure about this, Sam?" Cas asked, and when Sam looked up, he found that the angel had dropped his gaze down to him, worrying his lip for the second time that day. In addition to his infrequent cases of the munchies, it seemed Castiel was also developing a growing mastery of human nervous tics. "If the noise levels are more than you can comfortably withstand, you should tell me."

"I'm pretty sure I'll be fine, but if not, you'll be the first to know," Sam assured him. "Just stick me in your pocket and we'll be good to go."

Cas gave Sam a look like he didn't quite believe him, and it was all the young hunter could do not to start looking for a place to hide from those cool, measuring blue eyes. Then Castiel sighed and turned the cup sideways, his hand creeping forward to collect Sam. As Sam dropped into the pocket, he hesitated to let himself sink fully inside, hooking his fingers through the row of stitches woven along the opening.

"That was a pretty good joke, you know," he said. "Totally worth getting kicked out of the car."

He didn't fail to catch the split-second sight of Castiel's lips quirking upward as he lifted his head to face the door once more; and Sam's insides practically _glowed_ , like he'd been rewarded somehow. "Thank you," the angel said. "I thought so, as well."

The next few moments passed with much less mirth and much more apprehension. The angel's delicate fingers rose and slowly grasped the rusting metal handle set into the wood, shaped much like the door knocker in the movie adaptation of _A Christmas Carol_. Sam was nearly certain that the next moment would play out like what had happened in that movie, too—Jacob Marley's face transposing itself over the metal, ghastly and wailing—but Castiel exhaled through his nostrils, briefly, and then they were moving inside.

The young hunter's first instinct as the light and sound poured over them was that he should tunnel down as deep as he could go into Jimmy's pocket and never come out. The part of him that was irrepressibly curious—and maybe just a little bit of the _idjit_ Bobby always claimed he and his brother to be—kept him right where he was, gaping at the medieval medley passing before his tiny eyes. Actually, medieval only described one part of what he was seeing: it was like walking into a crossover of every fantasy novel and steampunk adventure Sam had enjoyed as a child, with a couple of superheroes and anime characters thrown in for good measure. While the crowd was surprisingly small, numbering no more than a couple dozen young adults, the noise they made was equal to that of a much larger group. The torches that ran along the walls burned with real fire inside cases of glass, and at the rear of the room sat a raised round stage separated by an ankle-high partition, next to which a fairly normal-dressed deejay was hooking up AV equipment.

Castiel was just as thrown off balance as Sam. The young hunter's perspective went into a tilt as the angel shifted into a battle-ready posture, the sleeve closest to Sam acting as a shield between him and their environs. "If there is some context that I am missing, Sam, now is the time to tell me," he said, sounding too damn calm for someone ready to throw down at the slightest hint of trouble. "I don't sense any malevolent energy, but—"

"It must be costume night," Sam said weakly... or thought he said, as the noise was just as terrific as the sight. The coffee house may have been a coliseum, but _this_ —this was taking things to a whole new level, like a bunch of rock concerts playing simultaneously, each competing for a single audience's attention. Sam felt it more than heard it, his earplugs distilling the noise down into a steady _whump-whump-whump_ that replaced the fragile flutter of his heart in his rib cage, and he tried without success to remember how many decibels the human ear could withstand before it sustained serious damage. And this was even _before_ they threw in the drunken screaming that was sure to result once the deejay was finished with the karaoke setup. The sooner they found the witch, the better.

"Costume night," Castiel repeated. "Like last year, with Samhain." It was a relief, at least, to know that Cas could still hear him. "Somehow I'm not surprised humans would further dilute the meaning of All Hallow's Eve by celebrating on the wrong day."

"Yeah, we're kinda weird that way," Sam agreed. Although now he was starting to think maybe this was the normal dress of choice for the clientele of a place calling itself the Dragon's Lair. Every time he looked back over the crowd something new and astonishing seemed to catch his eye; in so many ways it reminded him of Stanford, and Brady and Jess, the crazy college parties they always seemed to end up dragging him to but which he tremendously enjoyed himself at anyway. He spotted a kid in black Hogwarts robes walking around with a Sorting Hat slammed down over their head all the way to their shoulders, apparently in the company of a young Indian man wearing a matching black suit and fedora. Two girls sitting at the table next to them—dressed as Glinda the Good and the Wicked Witch of the West, respectively—were laughing at something a passing orange jumpsuited ninja had said. Sam realized their aesthetic was inspired more by _Wicked_ and less by _The Wizard of Oz_ when a waiter brought them their drink, a frothy vanilla milkshake with two straws, which they shared while staring deeply into each other's eyes. The last sight was such a visceral reminder of Jess that he could practically taste her favorite cream soda on his tongue, and a sigh tugged free from his lips.

Castiel, after repeated if not entirely truthful assurances from Sam that he was fine, returned to the business at hand. "How will we find the witch?" he asked, stepping carefully through the room, the shadow of his hand a constant buffering presence at Sam's side.

"Just keep an eye out for anything purple," Sam said.

He heard Castiel's frown. "Sam, everything is purple."

It was true. The stage was purple; the floor was purple; the tables were purple. Even the servers were dressed head to toe in outrageous fuschia gowns, which Sam had to wonder was a good idea given that the wall torches (also purple) contained real fire. He was just deliberating over what to say next when he heard a voice somewhere behind them.

"What's with all the nerds and dingbats?" Dean appeared at Castiel's side an instant later, hands on his hips and gaze casting about as if they were in a Croat-infested space and he thought he might catch something just from standing here. After a long moment in which he continued to look around like a beat cop hoping to sniff out some foul play at the local dive bar, he leaned back on the balls of his feet, ready to render his judgment in full. "I thought this was the _Dragon's Lair_ , not Otakon. I was expecting something with a badass name to actually be badass."

"Right now I don't think there's much of a difference," Sam said.

"Where's the battle axes?" Dean continued, either unaware or uncaring that the only audience he was playing to was himself, since he wouldn't be able to hear any answer that Sam gave and Cas didn't particularly care about his concerns. "Where's the torture racks? Where's the huge fucking dragon head mounted above the roaring fireplace and the sexy bar wench serving drinks from a barrel of booze? All I see are a bunch of pasty nerds in dresses. This blows."

Sam wrinkled his nose. "This may come as a shock to you, Dean, but your medieval-themed pornos don't apply here."

Dean was on a roll now. "You want to know how bad this is?" he grumped, giving Sam a look that it took the younger Winchester a second to realize he was supposed to share; he kept his expression closed, resolutely refusing to bend to Dean's nonsense. "It's so bad I think I'd rather be in a _literal_ gay bar. Think about that."

"I'm not," Sam said. He decided not to point out the existence of Glinda and Elphaba, who were now sharing a slow, open-mouthed kiss, their milkshake forgotten. "Go get a beer and stake out the entrance, then. This isn't a big place; she's bound to show up somewhere."

Cas repeated Sam's request, and Dean made a face at them before bellying up to the bar to no doubt land a beer and a babe (and maybe a witch for a distant third). Sam scanned the room for what felt like the hundredth time, but nothing more significant had occurred other than that the Sorting Hat had swapped heads while the deejay had put the final touches on the karaoke setup, switching on an overhead screen projection where the lyrics for each song would appear. Without waiting for his name to be called, the young man with the fedora took to the stage to croon the first number of the night—something about aperture science and still being alive after being torn to pieces that were then thrown into a fire—which ironically turned out to be a pretty low-key song, given the content.

Castiel, God bless him, did his best to navigate what must have been an extremely confusing situation, examining each table with his careful eye, evading the occasional pass made at him by an interested Hogwarts student (mostly by dint of being completely oblivious to come-on lines, and seriously, since when were Hufflepuff girls so into tall, dark strangers?). But there was only so much human nonsense a seraph could tolerate, and he stopped when his search brought him back to the door, frowning in a way that suggested he had traversed way beyond confused and was just offended now.

"Cas? What's wrong?" Sam asked.

"I had thought..." Cas hesitated, as though he thought he might be ridiculed. Then he seemed to remember that it was Sam and not Dean he was speaking to. "I thought all the singing would be in Japanese," he confessed presently. "And that there would be actual instruments." His eyes balefully swept the room once more, as if the discovery of that simple fact made the entire place suspect, and he'd been tricked into insinuating himself into a stomping ground for lawbreakers and ne'er-do-wells. "How exactly does an _empty orchestra_ function?"

"How does karaoke work? Oh, well." Sam wracked his brains a bit. "Like you said, it's a Japanese word, so it got started in Japan... sorry, I guess that was obvious." Sam threaded his fingers through his hair in an eternal nervous gesture. "I wasn't trying to imply you wouldn't know—"

"You apologize too much," Cas said bluntly. Sam foundered.

"Sor—er, crap. I don't mean to apologize so much. It just happens." Castiel accepted this explanation without comment, if with some measure of dubiousness. "Um, but yeah. Karaoke. The way it works is, the participants put themselves on a list, and when a person's name gets called, they go up and sing a song of their choice. Usually they're singing along to recordings of popular songs that everyone knows. Oh—but there aren't any words, the music is all instrumental, so they're providing the lyrics and..." Sam's hair was practically coming out in his fingers now. "Man, I'm _really_ bad at explaining this."

"It is a confusing concept," Cas said. "It does not reflect on your ability to explain it."

"No, I'm just not explaining it right. Really—"

"Why would anyone ever sing by themselves?" Castiel asked. He sounded serious, or more so than usual. "What joy could be had in that? Singing is always meant to be done in groups, to the glory of God. No one voice should stand out among the others, and no one voice should accrue more recognition than any other. That is how it was always done, back home."

"You mean you guys... the Host..." Sam swallowed hard at this newest self-revelation, given to him without the least urging, and for a second he wondered if Cas thought he _was_ talking to Dean. "You actually sang?"

Castiel was bemused. "You thought otherwise?"

"I sort of assumed you all just... killed things." And then Sam's hand moved to his eyes when he realized how that sounded. It was one thing if _Dean_ wanted to insult Castiel's family to his face, but Sam... "Wow, I'm sorry. That was a terrible thing to say."

When he looked up again, Castiel was frowning—whether at Sam's gaffe or at yet another repetition of _I'm sorry_ , Sam didn't know—but he chose not to address it. "We are soldiers, that much is true," he said. "But we are also singers, and guardians, and comforters. That the one function should eclipse the others is..." He looked away, and Sam found it impossible to discern what expression his face might be wearing. When at last he spoke again, his voice was much softer, as if he had realized something for the very first time. "It is tragic."

Sam could feel it descending on him again: that sense that the two of them were completely alone, despite the press of other souls around them. Sam's breath caught in his throat, the way it always did when he felt full and warm, resting on a pew at Pastor Jim's church while his brother and father wrapped up a hunt, clutching his beat-up pillow and daydreaming about the angels in their delicate panes of stained glass (and it made him happier, more than Cas could know, to learn that they sang still); or stretched out on the backseat of the Impala, listening to their voices rumble over him in lieu of a lullaby. Castiel's hand brushed the opening of his sanctuary, long fingers spread apart at equidistant lengths, the flesh of his huge palm close enough for Sam to lean forward and press his cheek into, if he had dared. Instead he studied the lines of that hand, the peculiar geography of grooves and indentations describing the palm, the delicate swirls crowning the pad of each finger. He had believed only this morning that hand would end his pitiful life, fingers stained red with his poisoned blood, and yet it had extended such protection that it was still beyond his ability to fathom. It may not have been _Cas's_ hand, but... when his eyes traveled back up the length of beige sleeve he found that the angel was looking right down at him, eyes unreadable and yet warm, like the sun shining through a break in the clouds, and Sam shivered even though it wasn't the least bit cold in here.

"When was the last time you sang, Cas?" he asked, almost in a whisper.

Castiel's lips parted slightly. His response, when it came, was nearly as hushed, and yet his voice seemed to completely surround him, to enfold him in the dream—perhaps the memory—of dark, dark wings. "With Uriel and Anna," he said. "Many eons ago. Your planet had not yet been formed, and we were exploring the spiral nebulae at the edges of the universe. Eventually we needed rest, but instead of returning to Heaven, we chose to roost on an uninhabited rock. It was a beautiful night." He paused, hand closing the thinning distance towards Sam, fingers curling as if they wished to have something to hold, and Sam felt a familiar heat both within and without. "Of course, many of the exoplanets beyond your own solar system are beautiful at night, and yet something about _that_ night—the way the stars sang to us, the rhythm of the ground moving beneath our wings—remained utterly ineffable. We _had_ to sing; the rocks themselves would have cried out if we had not. I still search for the words, sometimes, to convey how it felt. It was..."

The portrait he painted was beautiful... and it was agonizing, to the degree that such beauty would never be within the angel's grasp again. Sam's heart broke. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "I know this must be painful for you."

"I told you not to apologize. This isn't your fault."

"But it is."

He knew even before the words left his mouth that he had ruined it. The beautiful dream shattered, as the blue in Castiel's eyes shifted imperceptibly to some colder color, and the angel stiffened and turned his face away, a sun moving past the meadow to shine its warmth and light on another, more deserving flower. When Dean literally elbowed his way into the terminated conversation seconds later, still complaining and completely oblivious, Sam felt a bereftness so profound it made him ache.

"Christ," his older brother muttered, sucking the foam off what looked like his second mug of beer, opting for a golden ale rather than the purple brew that seemed to be the popular drink of choice at the other tables. "Where the hell _is_ this chick? I've been staring at that revolving door of freak shows for ten minutes now and nothing. Swear to _God_ , if she's not here in the next five seconds—"

The fedora-wearing man's second song drew to a close, earning a smattering of applause; and while Sam's earplugs ensured that the sound was dampened, the powerful vibrations of several massive hands slamming together still sent a jolt like a seismic wave through his bones. Had he not been so depressed, he would have found himself offering up thanks that his last-minute adjustment was actually having some effect.

"Would Alana please come on up!" the deejay called as Fedora Man hopped off stage right with a tip of his eponymous accessory towards a girl in the audience dressed like a black cat (who meowed sweetly in response), and another girl, beanpole-thin and sporting a tall lavender beehive, burst out of the ladies' restroom. Sam would have recognized her even without being the size of a palmetto bug. Her nails looked even shorter than they had that morning, and there were large flecks of Sephora's Purple Paradise missing from both thumbs. His chest stopped on a unreleased breath, all thoughts fleeing his head but for one.

"I think that's her," he said—somewhat needlessly, because Dean was already threading his way through the tables to reach the stage, his shoulders drawn up to his ears and his hands bunched in fists. "Dean, wait!" he yelled, remembering too late there was no way Dean could hear him, and he set about sending up a prayer that his older brother wasn't about to screw them all over while Castiel flowed forward to intercept him, moving as if he were underwater.

Fortunately, they didn't have to chase him down. When he was halfway to the stage—past the table with the group of boys in fake chainmail playing a board game, but before the wall with the push-pin bulletin board crowded with advertisements—a girl dressed in a flowing white robe with delicate angel wings flaring from the back accosted him, apparently intent on starting a conversation about how much she _absolutely dug_ his Danny Zuko costume. Sam exhaled with relief, breathing somewhat normal now, and his eyes returned to the stage, where their witch was just now approaching the mike stand.

Sam was impressed. Alana, for all the fear she'd shown when confronted with a couple of hunters, seemed completely in her element tonight. It probably helped that she had what looked like a tall flute of orange something or other in her right hand, while her left hand played with the microphone in a somewhat... Sam didn't want to be the kind of guy whose mind went straight to the gutter, but it looked awfully suggestive. A wolf whistle—it sounded like it was coming from Fedora Man's general vicinity—rang out, confirming his reluctant suspicions, and she giggled.

"How are all y'all doin' out there tonight?" she called out, and again Sam had to do a double take when he heard the levels of Southern brogue in her voice. "Everyone ready for Halloween?"

A few whoops to the affirmative went up from the crowd. Sam resisted the urge to let his arms go and drop back into Jimmy's pocket, in case Cas noticed and decided to walk out altogether, leaving Dean to deal with the witch alone. As it was, the girl with angel wings was doing a pretty good job of keeping Dean off of her; Sam could see his older brother smiling nervously as he tried for the first time in his life to actively turn _off_ the charm that had landed him in many a strange woman's bed, and failing pretty spectacularly from the looks of it.

"All right! Well, in the spirit of the season, I thought I'd sing something just a little bit different from my usual set," Alana continued with a hearty wink to the crowd; when Sam spared a glance back he could have sworn Fedora Man was _swooning_. "I'm just gonna require a _teensy_ bit of audience participation, though. How's that sound to y'all?"

Another cheer. Alana went over to confer with the deejay in a hushed voice.

For the first time Cas spoke. He seemed dumbfounded. "Sam, she's asking to sing about a time warp. Is the theory of relativity a popular subject for music in your culture?"

"I don't know, Cas," Sam said, puzzled. "I've never heard of any song like—"

And to say that it hit him like a ton of bricks just then would have been a hackneyed cliche, but it would have also been absolutely true. "Oh," he said, as years of high school musical theatre tech experience erupted from some dark corner of his mind, like a monster exploding out of a scummy lagoon in that one black-and-white horror movie Dean used to be obsessed with making his little brother watch with him. "Oh, _shit_."

Suddenly he knew _exactly_ what their witch was playing at; and, more than that, just how ugly things were about to get.

"Cas," he said, sounding far, far calmer than he felt. "We need to leave. Right now."

"But Dean—"

" _Forget Dean_. Forget everything. We gotta go. They're about to—"

His warnings came too late. The overhead lights dimmed and Alana was back on center stage, looking even more a spectacle, her eyes alive with wicked delight and her mouth curved into a thousand-watt grin. Sam couldn't find Dean even if he wanted to waste precious seconds saving his older brother from their impending doom. The audience's spirit of anticipation seemed to converge into a single point in his chest, sending an unwelcome shock of adrenaline hurtling through his bloodstream. If he survived this—

Well, _if_ was really the operative word there, wasn't it?

The first guitar riff struck the air like a detonating bomb. Alana's voice rolled in seconds later, a squall in a thunderstorm, smoky and confident.

 _"It's a— **stounding**... time is **flee** —ting... **mad** —ness... takes its toll..."_

She was really good at enunciating, some distant, non-terrified portion of Sam thought, and every note rang true. Way better than a lot of the screeching and/or mealy-mouthed kids who'd actually won roles for those old high school musicals he'd run tech for (and no, he wasn't bitter about always being stuck doing sound check, why do you ask?).

He didn't have time to dwell on the good old days, however, as the crowd was pushing the tables and chairs around, rearranging themselves into a circle, preternaturally assuming their roles like they'd been born for this moment. Looking at their costumes and the wild glint in their eyes, Sam thought, they probably had been.

 _"But listen **close** —ly... not for very much **long** —er... I've got to keep con— **trol** —!"_

Alana's voice broke into an operatic trill on the final syllable, and Sam estimated it was a small miracle that the glass in her hand didn't shatter into a thousand tinkling pieces. An instant later Cas was moving very quickly—at first to get them out of there, until an enormous shadow reared up out of the crowd, grabbing the angel by the shoulder and pulling him into the ever-tightening circle. Cas cried out with surprise, and more than a little fear.

"Sam, what is happening?"

"Can you do the time warp, Cas?" Sam muttered, and he wasn't even a little bit joking.

 _"I remember! Doing the time warp! Drinking! Those moments when!"_ Alana threw her head back, draining her glass in one swallow, and handed it off to the deejay, who was nodding his head to the music like a pigeon on crack. She took to stage front and center, stomping a pair of heels so high they might as well have been horse hooves, and for a moment it looked as if everything that wasn't nailed down—girl, mike, beehive—would pitch forward and fall into the darkness. _"The blackness would hit me! And the void would be calling!"_

The lights lifted, and as if they were mere appendages of one massive, grotesque body, everyone threw up their hands and screamed: _"Let's do the time warp aga-a-a-in! Let's do the time warp aga-a-a-in!"_

A moment's silence followed the last lines of the chorus. Sam's head felt like it was filled with cotton, and he found himself pressed up against a wall of heat, the angel's palm as immovable as stone as it curled around the pocket containing his diminutive passenger (probably the only thing that had saved Sam's eardrums from blowing out on the chorus), the flash of the angel blade that had suddenly fallen into his other hand glancing off the mirrored surface of the partition separating the makeshift dance floor from the stage. Sam could feel the wire-taut tension he imagined must be pulling at the angel's every muscle through the heavy jacket folds, all traces of softness gone. "Sam, these people have gone insane," he murmured. "Has some infection—?"

"Yeah, and it's not over yet, Cas. Just do me a favor and please don't hurt anyone. It's just—"

 _"—a jump to the left!"_ Alana announced; the tables shook like there was an earthquake. _Cas_ shook like there was an earthquake. _"_ _And a step to the right!"_

 _"With your hands on your hips!"_ Fedora Man shouted out helpfully. _"You bring your knees in tight!"_

 _"But it's the pelvic thru-u-u-st! That really drives you insa-a-a-ne!"_ And Sam wasn't even going to describe what happened next, other than to say that it was definitely _not_ G-rated and that his brother (who he could see now across the room, linked arm-in-arm with the girl with angel wings, apparently satisfied that she was one of those sexy angels and therefore someone worth getting to know) was getting _way_ too into it.

"This is not how time travel is conducted," Cas hissed, and Sam knew he wasn't addressing anyone in particular, was only trying to convince himself that some shred of sanity yet remained in the world. Sam recognized the tone, had used it often enough himself, whenever he found himself being dragged into one of his brother's harebrained schemes. "This is _perversion_. I cannot—"

"Hey, Constantine! Lose the coat and come dance with us!"

Whatever Cas was expecting, it wasn't _that_. Neither was Sam; he fell back into the pocket with an _oof_ that knocked the wind out of him, watching in disbelief as a pair of boulder-sized sequined gloves grabbed at the expansive spread of fabric stretching away from him; from the sounds of distress Cas was making, he guessed that someone on the other side was doing the same thing. Then the solid, comforting presence of Castiel vanished altogether, exchanged for a much shakier distribution of weight as Jimmy Novak's coat was gathered up into a new pair of arms (or two pairs, or three; Sam couldn't see a thing at this point) and flung onto an unmoving shape that he could only assume was a coat rack or a chair. When the world finally stopped its wild swaying and Sam thought he could budge without tripping some internal switch and vomiting his fairly wholesome breakfast all over himself, the song had progressed into what sounded like the solo tap dance segment. Thank God for small favors.

(That pun was not intended. It would never be intended.)

For several moments Sam just laid there, dazed. Then—

"Sam!" Dean's giant face appeared above the opening. He seemed torn between looking pissed off and looking like he was having the time of his life. As a result, his expression had settled just this side of constipated, which was really the last thing Sam needed to see when just about everything had a high definition appearance. "You okay in there?" His head turned slightly and Sam found he had a direct line to his brother's ear, so he wouldn't have to yell.

"I'm okay," he yelled anyway, feverish, "it's _Cas_ you need to be worrying—"

"Your boyfriend's fine, relax," Dean cut in dismissively. "These jokers just want Cas to dance with them, that's all."

"And... and is he dancing?" Sam had a feeling that trying to picture the angel performing the pelvic thrust portion of the song would lead to some serious brain breakage.

"Of course not!" Dean laughed. "But lemme tell ya, Sammy, it's a _beautiful_ sight. Like Christmas came early, or something."

"Can't you go rescue him?"

"No can do, little bro," Dean returned, voice exceeding its normal douchetastic levels. "If I have to sit and watch a bunch of virginal theatre geeks act out a lame-ass skit from the seventies, I damn well deserve a little free entertainment."

"Dean, you were dancing _with_ them," Sam said, shaking his head, if only for his own benefit since Dean couldn't see him. "I _just_ saw you dry humping the air with—"

"You saw nothing, shrimp!" Sounding far more scandalized than the circumstances called for, Dean's shadow disappeared. Sam sighed and pulled himself into a sitting position. After another moment in which he took a few anchoring breaths, he clambered up to the top of the pocket, despite his better judgment. He peered into what he could make out of the pandemonium, tried not to fall victim to instant vertigo in the process.

What he _did_ see made him pause. The world outside his one-man hideout was churning, melting into an indistinct panoply of color and light, like the one time Dean had decided to "watch" Sam at a hippie commune in an attempt to get lucky with the resident belly dancer, and someone had given him a really weird-tasting brownie... it spoke to the sheer manic energy of the proceedings that he wasn't even the one dancing, he wasn't moving at all, he was just a three-inch-tall man trapped in a coat pocket watching a depowered angel of the Lord attempt to bloodlessly extricate himself from a whirling, gyrating, grade-A den of iniquity, and oh _God_ when you said all that out loud it sounded like a scene from some surreal indie film directed by a guy hooked on three types of mind-altering substances.

If the Trickster could see them right now, he would be laughing his _ass_ off.

Dean, at least, seemed determined to get in enough laughs for all of them. All of his teeth were bared in a grin that was more like a grimace as he bent nearly double with his hands on his knees, struggling to find air in between bursts of wheezing, donkey-like laughter. Sam mentally tallied up the number of punches to the face that were owed Dean once he was back to his regular six foot-plus height; so far the number was three and in no danger of stopping there.

That was about the last coherent thought Sam had for a while. Suddenly exhausted, he slipped back into the refuge of the pocket, letting his eyes fall closed as the music, more distant now, washed over him. Something about being this size made him eternally fatigued, like maybe his body had to work harder to function, or the entire concept of what his life was now was so impossible for his brain to wrap around that it just gave up and urged him towards unconsciousness; either way, he'd taken about twenty cat naps today and felt no closer to being rested. He curled himself into a ball on Jimmy's wallet and did not stir again.

* * *

A/N: I know it's canon that Dean is a fan of roleplaying and nerd culture, but since this is set in one of the earlier seasons I figured he would still be pretty repressed in his enjoyment of such things. (Also: if you've never seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show, do yourself a favor and look up "The Time Warp" on Youtube. Then imagine Cas doing the dance. You're welcome!)


	4. Chapter Four

_Sam thwarts a thief, Cas expands his wardrobe, and it turns out witches don't much care for Dean either._

* * *

 **A Quantum of Solace**

 **Chapter Four**

Sam came to in fits and starts, his eyes blinking and limbs twitching and mouth muttering nonsense as he fought to regain a foothold in the land of the living. Probably less than ten minutes had gone by, to judge from the unchanged sounds of the crowd and the fact that even though wakefulness seemed impossible, he didn't feel particularly recharged. In the darkness of the pocket—which with each nap seemed to submerge him deeper and deeper in the memory of the tent he and Dean had slept in on more than one wendigo hunting trip, and therefore felt like home, or something close to home—he could just make out the shapes of huge fingers, rooting about as if in search of something.

"Cas?" he murmured, only half registering the fingers as they continued to shuffle around, disturbing the bits of lint that kept Sam company. "Oh, Cas. Thank God you're all right. I was really..."

He stopped—or rather, his heart did. He realized now that he didn't recognize these fingers—didn't recognize the strange prints adorning the pads or the mottled scar cresting the knuckles, but more than that, the unusually roughshod way they swept through the pocket, a complete antithesis to the gentle attentiveness he had come to associate with Castiel. They didn't belong to Dean, either, who would have never just stuck his hand in Sam's hiding place without making a (loud and obnoxious) announcement first. As if bearing out his discovery, the stranger's hand began to move with a greater urgency, thumb smacking against Sam's head as the young hunter tried to scramble away from it; he suddenly thought he knew how the classroom rabbit in Topeka, Kansas—a neurotic ball of fluff named Freddie Spaghetti—had felt whenever the kids carelessly pawed at it or thrust a hand into its cage without due warning. Sam dropped hard onto Jimmy's wallet, stunned but unhurt. An instant later, those strange fingers touched down on the wallet, began to close around it... and around _him_ , like he had suddenly become the hanger-on to a prize in the world's largest crane-operated claw machine.

Only Sam had a pretty good idea now of what was going on, and what this guy was actually after. "Hey," he cried out as the pickpocket started pulling the wallet free, shocked and more than a little offended on Jimmy's behalf. Unsurprisingly, this completely failed to put a stop to the felony in progress, and soon Sam was blinking spots out of his eyes as he found himself bathed by the light of the nearest wall torch, the flames of which still burned as brightly as ever. Driven to the edge of desperation by adrenaline, and with no time to consider other options, Sam did what he'd seen Freddie do countless times in the face of intruders: he latched himself onto the thumb that had struck him and bit down, hard.

His gambit worked. The pickpocket's hand jerked and he dropped the wallet, mutters of _what the fuck_ echoing in Sam's ears right before he fell, sliding down what seemed like an endless weave of polyester until he came to a rough landing at the bottom. He experienced one perfect moment of confusion, elbows pinned behind his back in the cramped space, and then he was hearing nothing at all, every sound in the world—even his own hummingbird heartbeat—muted by the wall of leather that came crashing down on him, blotting out all light, cutting off all air. Feeling a surge of fear, he tried to move but found he couldn't budge, as if he were trapped beneath the rubble of a destroyed building and not something as mundane as an Illinois salesman's wallet.

 _Please help_ , Sam thought, and it would be a long time before he realized that that was the first time he had ever prayed to an angel for himself: prayed without reservation, the ever-present doubt that he would be heeded, or even heard.

The pickpocket said _what the fuck_ again, only this time it came out more like _WHAT THE FUCK_ , and Sam's chest rose and fell with staggered breaths, the familiar sensation of electricity thrumming through his extremities; he knew without seeing that Castiel had indeed come to his aid, had even risked attracting the attention of the entire bar and flown to him. The pickpocket's yelp of shock was cut by the harsh flap of wings as the angel took flight a second time, undoubtedly dumping the guy someplace Sam didn't want to think about—maybe in a literal dumpster, if he was lucky. Siberia, if he was less lucky. Then Cas was back, reaching in, reaching down; and as that first warm, familiar finger dipped to meet him, Sam reached up, supplicating as a child, and wrapped both arms around it in sheer relief.

Castiel lifted him out with more slowness than usual. His other hand descended, bulwark-like, to engulf the young hunter's waist and shoulders, fingertips probing his body for injuries. Sam closed his eyes and submitted to the angel's touch, completely unafraid now, letting his heartbeat and breathing slow in tandem to a relaxed crawl. Presently he opened them again and tipped his head back, his gaze journeying up a broad white wall of dress shirt until it was resting on the angel's face.

"You came," was all he could think of to say, his voice as stumbling as his smile.

Castiel's blue stare held him. "Yes," he agreed, and he sounded puzzled, like he failed to understand why Sam needed to remind him of something he had just done. Sam felt his smile grow wider, less watery at that. For another long moment angel and hunter continued to just look at one another, and then Sam's head went into a tilt, lines of confusion gathering on his forehead as he fully took in his rescuer's appearance.

Fedora Man had apparently passed on his esteemed title to Castiel; the fedora was now on his head, perched at a particularly jaunty angle, and his tie looked like it'd been ripped off and put back on by a blind person—or maybe just an inebriated person with a unique fashion sense, which seemed more likely. A muscle visibly twitched beneath his right eye, although whether that stemmed from dispatching the threat to Sam or from the impromptu dance sequence was hard to tell. "...Cas?" Sam said, the one word somehow managing to convey the depth of his confusion.

Castiel's own head tilted to match Sam's. He blinked. "I did the time warp," he said finally, like that was all the explanation needed. Sam considered this. The fingers that were holding him sprang open beneath him, allowing him to nestle comfortably in Castiel's palm, but the angel still asked: "Sam, are you all right?"

"Yeah," Sam said, nodding. "Things got hairy for a moment, but... you really saved my ass there, Cas."

Sam chose that moment to look around. While the scene had gone a long way towards rearranging itself into something more sane and sensible, most of the crowd having absconded to the bar for a fresh round of drinks, he still couldn't see... "Uh, where's Dean?" he asked, suddenly nervous again.

"Dean is outside with the witch." Sam's head snapped back and he opened his mouth to yell at Cas to get back out there—and to _fly_ if he had to—but the angel cut him off before he could get a single word out. "It's okay. He promised to stand down unless she attacked. Sam, you have hearing damage," he added with a frown. "I'll have to heal this."

He raised his hand to his face. And now Sam was panicking for a completely different reason. He went as boneless as a jellyfish in the angel's grip, every part of his tiny body trembling: not with fear, but anticipation. Anticipation of soft skin, and warm breath, and other things he didn't want to think about but at the same time knew that he _wanted_ , wanted so desperately, so undeservedly.

"Wait," he managed to choke out at the last second. Castiel stopped.

"What is it?" he asked, lips twitching with irritation. Sam shouldn't have found the sight as mesmerizing as he did, but there seemed to be no limits to his depravity; he warred with himself not to let his gaze linger, the angel's lips looking so soft and so warm and just close enough to kiss, if he really wanted to...

That thought frightened him more than anything else that had happened to him today. _Not his mouth,_ Sam told himself fiercely. _Look at his eyes._ Then: _Shit! Don't look at his eyes. Look at—_

"Cas, could we maybe—do this later?" _Or never,_ his frantic mind amended. Castiel's eyebrows drew together, like he had heard that last thought, but he obediently resumed the distance between them. "I'm really worried about what Dean might do to Alana..."

Castiel's head tipped forward—not enough to restart the thud of his pulse in his ears, but enough that he felt a little short of breath again. Now that he could see the rest of him, Sam decided, the fedora was kind of a good look for him. "Is Alana really her name?" the angel asked. "This is not one of Dean's... jokes?" He didn't look like he was in the mood for any more jokes for the rest of the night—the rest of the _week_ , even—and Sam couldn't blame him.

"Yeah, that's really her name," he replied with a small laugh. "Alana Henderson, if we're going by the birth certificate. Although if we're going by the business card, then it's _Alana Starheart, Certified Teamaster_." Remembering the way Dean had incredulously sounded out each word as he scrolled down the website made him laugh a second time.

Castiel squinted, indicating that he was particularly confused. "I am to assume, then, that the latter is an unusual name?" he said, again in that hesitant way of his.

"It's..." And then Sam remembered he and Dean shared the name of a gun manufacturer. He was pretty sure _Winchester_ didn't crop up on too many pages in the phone book. "Okay, maybe not that unusual," he conceded. "But still, it's pretty—"

"Hey, Cas-man!" a voice called from across the bar, putting him in mind of other weird names, and the world went dark as the angel's fingers closed around him with the swiftness of a steel trap. The young hunter blinked rapidly, eyes attempting to adjust to the change, before he once more smelled leather and cologne and realized he had been placed back into the shelter of Jimmy's pocket. The pocket swayed with the gentle motions of a hammock as Castiel carefully lifted the coat from wherever it had been sitting and put his arms through the sleeves. When Sam decided it was safe to emerge, he saw Fedora Man—sans the fedora—approaching from his three o'clock, grinning widely.

"Man, you slayed out there, for _reals_ ," he told Cas, voice heady and delighted in a way that reminded Sam way too much of Brady on a bender. "Like, if this was a real dragon's dungeon, you'd be the one bringing home the booty and the babes. I already have three hotties asking for your phone number." Sam didn't need to see Cas's face to know the angel was ransacking his junk drawer of pilfered human expressions for anything that could adequately convey his complete bafflement (and perhaps vague horror) at that statement. "You're gonna come hang out with us tomorrow, right?"

This question, at least, was something Castiel seemed to understand, which made Sam wonder who _us_ was and just how many friends Cas had made during his brief introduction to karaoke dancing; he would have to float to Dean the idea of bringing their resident angel back here someday, so long as he steered clear of the aforementioned hotties. "I'm afraid not," the angel said mildly. "I will be required to return to my mission by then."

"Oh right, sure, the _mission_ ," Fedora Man said, winking hugely, like he and Cas were both in on some huge private joke. "Gotta find that holy shrub, right?"

"Not a shrub," Cas corrected. "Although it would not be the first time God was found in a bush." Fedora Man gave a laugh and swatted his shoulder playfully. Seconds later his features pulled into a wince and he rubbed the hand that had struck the angel—Castiel tended to wear Jimmy like a literal suit of armor—although his eyes still shone with good will.

"Hey, holy shrub or holy parking ticket, dude, I know you're gonna find it. But, uh, before you go flying out of here..." His eyes flicked up pointedly then, falling on Castiel's newest fashion statement, and it only took Sam a second to catch on to why he'd approached them in the first place.

"Todd," Castiel said, his voice so solemn that Sam was sure the last time its like had been heard was on some ancient, bloodied battlefield, the angel himself surrounded by untold numbers of the dead and dying. "You should know that Regina shares your feelings." Fedora Man—Todd, Sam mentally corrected—gave a school girl gasp and dropped his hand. "The attraction, as you may say, is mutual."

"Because of the hat, right?" Todd's grin could have lit up the entire state.

"In spite of it." Castiel's voice was strangely gentle now, if unforgiving in its certainty. Todd's smile fell and his face grew peppered with confusion.

"But... ladies love fedoras. My mom said I looked just like Justin Timberlake..."

"I do not know who that is," Castiel replied. "But I am certain that not every woman prefers Justin Timberlake, and anyway, you are not him. You are Todd." Todd looked as if Cas had just pronounced him a particularly slimy larva of insect, and Sam felt an ache of sympathy, suddenly convinced this guy had seen the inside of more than a few high school lockers. "I will be keeping this," Cas said, touching a hand to his head. "May God's favor be with you." Before Todd's features could rearrange into some third expression—maybe that of the dejected nerd—he added, in a more reassuring tone, "Were you to ask Regina for a dance right now, I strongly believe she would not refuse your request."

"You mean that, Cas-man?" Todd whispered.

Cas nodded. "Goodbye, Todd," he said.

Sam spared a glance back as the angel swept out of there like Batman, making his way smoothly towards the exit. Todd remained standing where he was, blinking like the sun was shining right in his face. The girl with cat ears walked by him, having an animated chat with her friends on her way to the bar, and he recovered long enough to touch her shoulder. The music cued up for a romantic number—Elphaba and Glinda performing a duet, it looked like—and after Todd's lips moved to form the question that Sam had no doubt he was asking, the girl's face broke into a wide smile and she practically dragged him by the elbow onto the dance floor.

 _Ah,_ Sam thought, _young love._

* * *

Alana was not a happy camper. Meaning that Dean was not a happy camper.

Meaning that communications broke down less than five minutes after Dean had tapped the witch on the shoulder and motioned her to step outside with him to have a conversation, in what was maybe the worst place to have one: right at the entrance to the abandoned alley, beneath the sporadic light of the busted lamp post. Well, whatever; the important thing was that the witch didn't try to give him the slip again, or turn him into a mouse or something.

Still, he thought, now would be a _really good fucking time_ for Cas to haul his feathery ass out here.

"I'm not asking for much, Gaga. All I want is the spell or the Wonderland potion or whatever the hell it is that deshrinkifies my little brother." In honor of his wuss brother and their wuss angel's wishes, Dean kept his gun in the waistband of his jeans, although he was prepared to draw the second the bitch decided to go for a wand or something. He wasn't about to underestimate a witch, even this touchy-feely hummingbird with the shitkicking accent. "You cough it up and we'll leave town—no questions asked, no going to other hunters with what we know. Guaranteed. You can go back to enjoying show tunes and butterbeer to your little heart's content and forget we were ever here."

That was a lie, sort of. They still needed to know whatever the witch did about what had happened to the four people who'd gone missing in the last week, but Dean had learned that you caught more flies by not advertising the vinegar in advance. If Sam ever heard him say that out loud, he'd gag over the creative license taken with the original metaphor, but tough. Dean was a genius, and he knew it.

"Yeah, like I'm really gonna trust the word of a _hunter_ ," Alana sneered. She looked Dean up and down as if he were a piece of gum that had come unstuck from her shoe, which was about the same as how he felt about her, for hurting his little brother and then having the big brass ovaries to pretend she didn't know what he was talking about. "Y'all are all the same. Bunch of oversexed, testosterone-leaking, machismo-obsessed _bullies_ —"

"Honey, right now you don't have a choice."

"My point exactly." Alana gave a pretty little shrug that would have perfectly hoodwinked any bystander into thinking she wasn't afraid, but Dean wasn't fooled for a second; his eyes tracked the nearly imperceptible waver in her shoulders, the precarious bounce of the beehive on her head as she kept crossing and uncrossing her arms. "And I don't know why you keep hollering about some shrinking spell. There's no such thing. You can't just shrink a person, not without tapping into some serious dark magic, and you couldn't _pay_ me to be in the same room as a Ouija board."

"Then why don't you explain it to me again," Dean grit out. "What you did."

"I told you," Alana said. "It was my signature spell. I cursed you—"

"You cursed my brother—"

"I cursed _you_ ," Alana said. Her eyes were wide and insistent beneath her glitter-dusted lashes, and if Dean hadn't been so pissed at her, he might have found them kind of attractive. "At least, I meant to. Your brother wasn't the one fixing to give me a heart attack. But clearly it wore off or something, because you're out here bothering me instead of running around in Hobby Lobby looking for darning needles."

"Darning needles," Dean repeated. This case was just full of surprises, he thought—surprises, and also headaches.

"Yeah. So you can make a sock monkey."

"...A sock monkey."

"Well, not a sock monkey, that's just what the last guy made." Alana made a vague waving gesture that Dean had no idea how to interpret. "It could be anything, really. A beanie, or a friendship quilt, or a little cozy for your gun—"

Dean threw up a hand. "Yeah, I'm gonna stop you right there." The witch's brows drew together and he pulled a face at her. "A _knitting_ spell? Really? That's your big secret weapon?"

Alana shrugged again. "Say what you want, but it works. So many hunters think they can barge into my home, threaten me like I'm just another monster, all because I happened to be born with powers I didn't want or ask for. _Yes_ , jackass, some witches are born, not made," she said at Dean's look of unvarnished skepticism. "It ain't all petty demon deals and praying to Beelzebub for the power to ruin your neighbor's crops."

"You'll forgive me if I don't immediately buy that," Dean said.

"You need to open up your mind, then." Alana gave a little shake of her head—Dean really had to wonder how her neck hadn't broken trying to hold up the Leaning Tower of Hairdo. "But anyway. What the spell does is, it replaces the desire to destroy with a desire to create. Once the spell runs its course and the dust settles, most hunters scuttle home with their tails between their legs, their little egos too bruised to share what happened. Then there're folks like you, the ones who can't stand that something supernatural got the best of them without giving them some _noble_ and _heroic_ death." Dean opened his mouth to protest, mostly because he had no illusions about the hunting lifestyle (not anymore, not after Dad and hell and angels and the end of the world), but she cut him off. "I get it—some of y'all do a lot of good, protecting the weak from the actual monsters, and that's real admirable... but for the rest of you, it's all one big pissing contest. And the Lord judges a hypocrite."

Her eyes burned with conviction. Dean's eyebrows shot up to his hairline. "Okay, I was not expecting the sermon," he admitted.

Of course, it was at that moment that Castiel decided to join them, moving into the circle of flickering yellow light, eyes pinned to Alana like she was the embodiment of the second coming. Then again, given the preaching... "Finally, the Staremaster graces us with his presence," Dean said sourly.

Cas looked away from Alana long enough to— _of course_ —stare at Dean, and the hunter raised his eyes heavenward, asking God why the only angel they had on their side in this fight was the one whose sense of humor had been lobotomized. Then Dean remembered that he had sort of been waiting on the angel for a reason.

"Cas," he said urgently. "You got our precious cargo? _Sam_ ," he clarified when Cas continued to look gobsmacked. "Do you have Sam."

The angel returned his gaze to Alana with a pissy expression—and what was _his_ problem, anyway—but he nodded.

"Okay. Let's show her the evidence, then."

But Alana was already backing away from them, her eyes glued to Cas, ridiculous stilettos disturbing pebbles on the pitted asphalt with every step she took. "I feel it," she said, her voice nearly a moan of fear. "I can feel your power. It's... it's inhuman. Oh God, what are you? I—"

" _Oh God_ is right," Dean muttered, at the same moment that Cas took a step forward, and then another, and another, until he and the witch were standing nearly toe to toe.

"I feel yours as well, muse," he said softly, which Dean thought was an interesting way to pronounce _evil bitch that shrunk Sammy._ "You are a powerful steward of the earth."

"Please don't hurt me." Alana's eyes closed and she clasped her hands like a churchgoer at prayer. Cas's face softened.

"I think you are far more likely to hurt me, if you wished it," he continued, ignoring Dean. "And yet you have never used your power to harm another living creature. I am an angel," he added, and Alana's doe eyes shot open.

Jesus. Were they having a _moment_? Was _Dean_ the only one here who gave a crap about what Sam was going through? The hunter felt the sudden urge to shove himself between them before Alana could plant a big sloppy kiss on Cas's lips, except then he might end up with witch cooties. The witch's mouth worked soundlessly for another moment, and then she was looking up into the angel's face with something close to worship.

"I can't believe this... I have so many questions... I mean, you're really an _angel_." Suddenly the rapturous look faded, supplanted by one of confusion. "You're an angel, and you're wearing Todd's hat."

Castiel reached up with one hand to touch the brim of the fedora—like it _pleased_ him, the motherfucker. "It did not suit him," he said simply.

Alana snorted. "You got that right. He probably has an actual chance with Regina now." She rose to her full height, brushing invisible dirt off the front of her hippie-dippie dress, and pinned Cas once more with those adoring eyes. "Well, the Lord sent you to me for a reason, so I won't keep you with my nonsense." Next moment, to Dean's amazement, she was sticking out her hand to him with a grin. "What can I do ya for?"

Cas hesitated only a moment before taking it. Well, he was a braver man than Dean. "Your expertise is required," he told her. "Our friend was adversely affected by a spell you cast. I understand that it was unintentional, but you are the only one who can help him."

And then, while his hand was still wrapped around Alana's, he reached into his pocket with his other hand and presented the world's littlest brother to her.

Alana's smile froze in a perfect imitation of a ventriloquist dummy's grin. For one long moment her face proceeded to turn three different shades in succession, at one point matching the color of her hair. Finally, her hand dropped slowly to her side, and she opened her mouth.

Dean thought she was going to scream. He started towards her, intent on protecting Sammy from the migraine he was sure to incur from a normal-sized person screaming in his face; but Cas wasn't moving at all, didn't even seem concerned, and he stopped in his tracks when a thin croak escaped her lips instead.

"Oh, no," she said, sinking into a hard sit on the ground, hugging her knees to her chest. "Oh, no. Not _again_."


	5. Chapter Five

_Some new information comes to light, Dean gives Sam a bath, and Sam and Cas have a serious conversation._

* * *

 **A Quantum of Solace**

 **Chapter Five**

Sam didn't know what it meant that he felt worse for Alana than he did for himself during this whole thing. He only wished that the witch—a hummingbird of a girl who stood barely over five feet tall and had to be a hundred pounds soaking wet—wouldn't gawk at him as if _he_ were the weirdest thing she had ever seen. At least, weirder than a fedora-wearing angel and a hunter that had literally been to hell and back.

"I'm so, so sorry," she said—for maybe the third time in as many seconds—but a sudden movement on Sam's right revealed his brother already advancing on her, fingernails biting into his palms, footsteps pounding out a small earthquake on the hard-packed ground.

"Start talking," Dean said grimly. "What do you mean, _not again_? You've done this before? Shrunk a person? I knew you were lying, you—"

"No!" Alana cried, backing away; Castiel moved forward to cover the short distance, and to perhaps deter Dean from coming any closer. "I've never done that to anyone! But it's, uh... possible to miscast. Just a little. Every now and then."

"Miscast?" The footsteps suddenly ceased, and Sam glanced over to see Dean's eyes narrowing in incomprehension. "Miscast what?"

"A fishing line." Alana placed her hands on her hips, giving him a look that fell somewhere between outrage and incredulity. "What do you think? A _spell_ , obviously. Gawd, my mama always said my accent was going to get me into trouble someday, but I never thought..."

Sam felt a draft of shifting wind as Castiel's gaze flitted back and forth between the two of them. "I am confused," the angel confessed presently.

"I think what Sabrina the southern-fried witch is trying to tell us—" Alana's head snapped up at Dean's words, lashes blinking out what looked to Sam like a sort of Morse code for _well screw you too—_ "is that her pronunciation is as shitty as her aim. Win _gar_ dium Leviosa, and all that."

"I could still get you, you know," Alana said darkly. "Hobby Lobby doesn't close for another hour."

Sam didn't know what in the world she was alluding to by that. Dean must have, though, because his face instantly went bone-white and he put his hands up in a warding gesture. "You do that, sister, and I'll—"

"Dean, could you shut up for a second? Thanks," Sam said, and without looking to see if Dean had heard him, he turned back to Alana. "Listen, I'm really sorry about all this. I know you didn't mean for it to happen."

"Why the hell are you apologizing to _her_?" Dean interjected, his voice a small roar that made Sam glad he'd kept his earplugs in. He sighed and shook his head.

"Because what we did was wrong, Dean," he said. "If we hadn't busted into her house like we did, I wouldn't be cursed right now, and we wouldn't have fallen so behind on this case. For all we know, another person could have gone missing today. We've lost so much ground, and we still don't have any real leads..."

"Missing?" The expression on Alana's face morphed from wary suspicion to open concern, along with some third emotion Sam couldn't identify but which instantly aroused his interest. "What do you mean, _missing_?"

Sam opened his mouth to explain, but Dean barged in, pointing a finger in Alana's face, who looked at it like nothing would please her more than to bite it off and leave Dean to bleed out all over the asphalt. "Oh no you don't," his older brother said. "First things first. What do I have to do before Sam starts singing _We represent the Lollipop Guild_?"

Alana averted her eyes in response, her crystal-spoked earrings swinging back and forth, catching and refracting the play of light from the moon, which had come uncovered from the clouds at that moment in a brilliant burst of white. Sam's heart sunk as he realized he had already received his answer. "That's not something I can help you with," she said in a small, still voice. "I'm sorry. The spell, it's..."

The distress on Dean's face perfectly mirrored Sam's. "Are you shitting me?"

"No, I'm not _shitting_ you, but I'm about running out of patience with your _attitude_ ," the witch returned, shoving her own purple-flecked fingernail into Dean's chest to make her point. The older hunter took a step back, eyes widened, like she was about to make good on her Hobby Lobby threat. "You didn't let me finish. I can't take it back, but every spell I've ever done has come with an expiration date. They don't last longer than forty-eight hours—tops. Plenty of time for me to make myself scarce, if not quite enough time for loose-cannon hunters to reconsider their careers. So I reckon you got..."

"...until the morning after tomorrow," Sam said gloomily. He wasn't surprised by this—not really—but he could still taste the disappointment in his mouth, bitter and thick. This was as much his screw-up as Dean's, and if Castiel hadn't been around to cover their asses, it could have turned out so much worse.

"I'm sorry," Alana said again. "I really, _really_ didn't mean to curse you." She shot Dean a dirty look, who volleyed it back with twice the amount of force, throwing out his arms on either side of him like a drunkard issuing a challenge.

"So riddle me this, then," he groused. "How is getting wasted and singing Rocky Horror at a bar for Renaissance Fair rejects _making yourself scarce_?"

"Okay, first off, I wasn't _wasted_ ," Alana growled. Then her lashes lowered imperceptibly as her thumbnail crept into her mouth, the tip captured firmly between her teeth. "And second of all," she continued between small, furtive nibbles, "I was just trying to look out for my friends. I had a feeling that I couldn't leave them alone tonight."

And again Sam caught it—the haunted look in her eyes, the catch in her voice on the word _friends_. "Alana, we're looking into a series of disappearances," he said, hoping beyond hope that something worthwhile was about to come out of this detour into unreality. "Four people. All of them vanished from this part of town within the last week. Is there anything you can tell us about it... anything at all?"

Alana deflated just then—or at least, her hair did. Castiel remained unmoving, but Sam still gripped the base of the angel's thumb and watched, mystified, as the tips of her soft-serve yogurt hairstyle began to peak and separate from one another, scattering the bruised light of the streetlamp over the curb, opening like petals on a flower in full bloom. The lavender strands slowly lowered themselves, cascading well past her shoulders, their length ending in delicate curls at the small of her back. Sam's breath left him at that moment in a little laugh; unpreparedness aside, it was just like watching something out of a fairy tale.

He made the mistake of looking at Dean at that moment. His older brother grinned at him and straightened up with a roll of his shoulders, conveying some sentiment along the lines of _dude, this chick just got one hundred percent hotter_. Sam rolled his eyes and shifted his attention back to the witch, only to start again when he found that she had knelt before Castiel's hand to meet him at eye level, expression somber on her impossibly wide, powdered face. She was close enough now that he could see a small stamp of freckles across her nose, their golden color thrown into even sharper relief by the intensity of her multicolored contact lenses.

"I dunno how much help I'll be," she said. "But I'll do whatever I can."

"Thank you." Sam's throat clenched, but he swallowed it down, determined not to show that he was unsettled, and nodded at his brother. "Dean, the files?"

"Got 'em." Dean was already pulling a well-worn folder out of his jacket. He brushed off the front with an extravagant sweep of his arm, then slid out a handful of pictures he'd swiped from the local PD, each glossy photo accompanied by a sheet of paper containing a detailed physical description of the victim. He slapped the collection of documents into Alana's outstretched palm, and Sam observed the sheen of dismay that came down over her face like a curtain as she flipped through each page, her lips silently moving to form each name: _Stephen Anderson, Sandra Fairhaven, Agatha Wu, Josh Bishop..._

"I know them," she murmured finally, so softly that even Sam had trouble hearing. Then, more loudly: "I know these people. They're my friends."

"Yeah?" Dean said. "You wanna tell us what took them?"

Alana shook her head. "I don't rightly know," she confessed, lowering the documents, high color blooming in her pale cheeks. "Honestly, I kinda thought you..." Her dark eyes flitted over to Sam then, as if appealing for his understanding. Sam nodded.

"I can see why you might have thought that. Doesn't exactly reflect well on us, huh?"

"Whoa, whoa, hold up," Dean said, making a face. "You thought _we_ were the ones nabbing people?"

Sam resisted the urge to facepalm at his brother's obstinance, while Alana shifted her attention to him, her countenance angry and defensive. "Look, what was I supposed to think? My friends don't have a drop of the supernatural in them—I've never even told them what I really am, and I don't plan to. Not to mention, most of us met at _church_. So when everyone starts vanishing into thin air, and a trigger-happy hunter and his brother show up at my house with _guns_ —"

"Is anyone ever going to let that go?" Dean muttered.

"—and I've had _plenty_ of bad experiences with hunters, so yeah, I think y'all could afford to cut me a little slack," Alana finished in a huff. Her righteous indignation was somewhat compromised by the fact that her thumb had managed to migrate halfway into her mouth. She chewed on it for a long moment, then went on: "I decided to hole up at the Dragon's Lair, to keep an eye on the rest of my friends and to figure out what I should do."

Sam exchanged a look with Castiel, gratified to know that they were finally getting somewhere. His older brother, however, was still hung up on a certain detail.

"Let me get this straight," Dean said, waving his hand. "Witches go to _church_?"

"Try to keep up," Alana said. "But yes, I'm a member of the Epiphany Congregational Church. And so was everyone who disappeared. I don't know anyone who would—"

She stopped just then with a little forward jerk of her head, looking remarkably more birdlike than usual; in the same instant her teeth slammed down on her thumb, separating a purple sliver of nail from the end. Her eyes were wide and alarmed in her head—and, Sam noted, more than a little unbelieving, like she'd just seen a ghost.

"What?" he said, interest piqued, hoping there was more truth to that phrase than he thought. "What is it?"

Alana stared down at him, then at some point beyond his line of sight. "It's nothing," she said, in a voice that suggested anything but.

"Come on, Samantha," Dean said. "Don't hold out on us now. Even the smallest hunch could point us in the right direction."

The witch shook her head. "It's crazy."

"Crazier than _this_?" Dean swept his arm around the circle of light, stopping when it had reached Cas, who frowned at his hand.

Alana was silent for a long moment, as if digesting his point. Then: "Okay, fine," she said. "But you're not gonna believe me."

"Try us."

Alana exhaled. The sigh seemed to heave up from her very toes. "Look, I know I said we were church folks, but there's something else you should know. The way we worship is... well, it's a little unorthodox."

"Yeah," Dean said. "We saw the pamphlets at your house. You're a rainbow congregation, right?"

"The term is _open and affirming ministry_ ," Alana returned, miffed. "But basically: yes. We welcome everyone to worship with us, no matter their sexual orientation. Unsurprisingly, that doesn't play well with the Real True Christians around here," she finished up, her voice dripping with snark, and underneath that, a good measure of frustrated sadness.

"Strange," Castiel remarked. "Heaven has no particular compunctions about same-sex attraction." Alana's brows lifted and she turned to him, hands raised as if in supplication.

"See? You're an angel, I _knew_ you'd get it."

"So you have enemies," Sam hazarded, trying to return them to the topic.

"I wouldn't use that word, exactly," Alana said. "We're a college town, so people here are more open-minded than you think. Still, we did have our fair share of—opposition. Strangers giving us dirty looks, other churches in the community refusing to work with us. Petty stuff. In the end, we just let it roll off our backs—I mean, Jesus told us to turn the other cheek, right? But there was this one guy..." She shook her head, eyes suddenly hooded. "He was a real piece of work. A total fanatic. I struck up a conversation with him at the coffee shop a few months ago. He'd just moved to town, said he was looking for a place to worship. He seemed sincere, so I invited him to go to church with me. Worst mistake I ever made. The second he saw what we were all about, he decided it wasn't enough to _agree to disagree_ —he wanted to see us burn like the house of sin we were."

"Charming," Dean said. Alana gave a brief tip of her head, apparently agreed with him on something.

"It started off with threatening phone calls to the deacons, random cases of vandalism on the church grounds. I mean, we've always had to deal with that in some form or another, but it was particularly nasty when he did it. This went on for a while. Then he _really_ lost the plot—actually followed me home one day while I was canvassing for a church fundraiser. I turned around and there he was, staring at me like he was trying to burn a hole in my head. Got me real scared, especially when a letter turned up in my mailbox a week later, promising that me and all my friends were going to _get ours_." She shivered, visibly disturbed by the memory.

"Alana..." Sam thought he knew where this was going. "Where is this man now?"

 _Six feet under,_ he expected to hear. But he and Dean both shared a mystified look when the witch replied: "In the hospital, just downtown from here. The creep stepped out into traffic without looking and got himself banged up something awful."

Dean's posture slumped in defeat. "You mean he's _alive_?" he asked. Alana gave him a sidelong glance, nodded slowly.

"And in stable condition. And this is the crazy part, mind—he's been out like a light the whole time. Never woke up, not even once. If it weren't for that, I'd have pegged Theodore for sure as the one behind the disappearances. That's how unstable he was."

Sam worked the information over in his head. True, it left their whole case dead in the water if the potential perp—Theodore— _wasn't_ a ghost, but... when he looked over at Dean, his older brother was wearing a much more decisive expression on his face.

"Come on, Sammy," he said, firmly but softly, voice touched with buried emotion. "We both know you don't have to be dead to be a ghost." Then, to Alana:

"Hey. Did any of your little church friends volunteer down at the hospital? You know, praying with the sick people, laying on of hands, all that religious mumbo jumbo."

And Sam understood now, fully, just what it was that Dean was suggesting. From the astounded look on Alana's face, he thought she did too.

"They... they could have," she admitted. "We've had a lot of sick parishioners lately. I was due to go in myself this week, bring some of my tea. But still—it's impossible. The man's in a _coma_ ," the witch repeated, lips shaking as they struggled to form the words. "There's no _way_ that he could—"

"Trust me, sister—in our line of work, there's always a way," Dean cut in, sounding even more decided now, voice as tense as the set of his shoulders. "I'm surprised you were so quick to rule it out, yourself."

"Look, just 'cause I'm a witch, that doesn't mean—"

"That's not what I meant," Dean said, sounding surprisingly patient. "I meant you shoulda kept a more open mind, just based on certain... reading material."

Alana continued to look baffled, but recognition instantly snapped in Sam's brain. "The _Supernatural_ books," he breathed.

"Yeah. I mean, between the racist truck and me running away from a Reaper during my Sleeping Beauty stint, some comatose homophobe zeroing in on cafeteria Christians is just business as usual, right?"

"No," Alana whispered. "You're not..."

"Oh, didn't we introduce ourselves? Sam and Dean Winchester, in the flesh," Dean said, clearly enjoying the look of shock that crept over the witch's features. "Chuckles over here is late to the party, but don't let that stop you from swooning—we're still the demon-slaying heartthrobs of your teenage dream or whatever."

"My name is not Chuckles," the angel insisted in an irritated voice. "It is Castiel."

Alana looked dazed now, her fingers fidgeting incessantly with her hair, which flowed about her like fatigued snakes. "I need another drink," she said. "And a smoke. No—definitely another drink. Holy _shit._ Pardon my French." She began fanning herself effusively, the skin on her knuckles clammy as they fisted away beads of sweat from her rapidly flushing cheeks, even though it had to be well under forty degrees outside. "I thought Carver Edlund was just a hunter with a vivid imagination."

"Yeah," Dean hissed. "I fucking _wish._ " Alana looked at him, her lips twisting just then into a thoughtful expression.

"Dean, right? Ya know, you're a lot more likeable the way Edlund writes you," she pointed out, earning a burst of surprised laughter from Sam and a look of wounded dignity from Dean. "Way less attitude, lots more BM moments."

Dean sputtered wordlessly for a moment. "What the _fuck_ is a BM moment?" he finally managed to get out around snarling lips.

To both brother's amazement, Alana actually giggled. The sound was high and girlish and sounded like it came from someone much younger. "Oh, sorry!" she said, hand clapped to her mouth as if holding back further laughter; it took Sam a moment to realize that she was embarrassed. "It's... a term we came up with in fandom. A _boy melodrama_ scene. Usually it involves you, Dean, crying, or—"

"Even worse than I thought. Just forget it—I don't want to hear anymore. Next thing I know you'll be telling us you write _Dean-slash-Sam_ fanfiction." Dean spun on his heels as if making to leave, hands jammed viciously into his pockets, then turned back around, giving Sam and Castiel the evil eye. "Well? Are you two happy now? We got what we came for. I say we pay Fred Phelps a visit and finally get to the bottom of this crapola."

"And what am _I_ supposed to do?" Alana demanded, her eyes flashing. "I'm not about to stand by like a good little girl and let y'all do all the heavy lifting."

Dean looked like he had some choice words to share on that point, but Castiel spoke up before either of his companions could. "I would advise you to stay with your friends," the angel said somberly. "It is unlikely that they will be taken as long as you are with them, and given what we know, they would hardly be in danger so long as they stay away from the hospital."

"He's right," Sam said, much to the witch's apparent consternation. "Remember, we don't know _where_ these people were when they disappeared. If Theodore really is behind this, he'll have been taking people from inside the building itself. At this point, it's the only explanation that makes sense."

"It's also completely nuts," Dean said, and now he was grinning, the way he normally did when he finally caught the scent of a good hunt in his nostrils, "but then if you'd asked me yesterday, I woulda said Sammy being shorter than me was nothing more than a goddamn pipe dream."

"I want to help," Alana insisted. She straightened up and took a half-step forward, as if willing to prove her mettle; but Castiel pushed back against her with his open hand, not ungently.

"Alana," he said, and somehow his gravel tones managed to stop the witch where she was. She blinked up at him, like a child, and lowered her arms. "You are not without power. But you lack the experience to use it in an offensive capacity. What happened to Sam today is proof enough of that."

Alana's eyes flickered guiltily down to Sam, who tried to shrug gamely in response.

"It's okay to ask for help, Alana," he said, and guessed that he had said the right thing by the way the corners of her eyes and lips tightened with some long-restrained emotion. "You've done more than enough to help your friends tonight. Let someone else help you, for a change."

The thick lashes fell, nearly—but not quite—concealing a tear. "Even if it's a hunter?" the witch whispered, voice wavering.

Sam smiled reassuringly, hoping she'd be able to see it on his much smaller countenance. "Even then," he affirmed.

"Thank—thank you." The tear slid free, but Alana caught it with the pad of one finger before it could cut a dark mascara trail down her white cheek. She stood there for a long moment, trembling. Castiel's open palm moved from her breastbone to hover at the small of her back; and Sam felt his smile change to a small, pleased one, seeing the proof of how far the angel had come in his interactions with humans, knowing that he had seen and noted and adopted all the tiny ways that people helped each other. "I've just been... so scared. You know. Do you think they're still alive?" she asked, suddenly breathless. "I couldn't bear it if..."

There was a long moment of silence, during which even Dean seemed to radiate uncertainty. "I don't know," Sam said finally, honestly. "It's an unusual case. If Theodore's—ghost, we'll call for lack of a better word—was actually attacking people, it normally would have left a body, but..."

"Like the tiny man said," Dean chimed in. "This isn't your run-of-the-mill haunting. For all we know, he cold-cocked your friends and tied them up in the basement or something."

He didn't sound very confident in his assessment, but Alana looked grateful anyway. "Okay," the witch said. She shook her head, freeing a mess of curls on her forehead, which she pushed back with a hand that no longer trembled. "Okay. Thanks for leveling with me. I really appreciate y'all helping me. _All_ of y'all," she added, smiling at each of them in turn—even Dean, who returned her gaze with a less than enthusiastic expression. "I'll pray for you, okay?"

"Yeah," Dean muttered. "You do that." Then he rubbed his hands together, the feral smile sliding back onto his lips. "Okay—time to formulate a new game plan. What do we feel like doing, kids?"

Castiel frowned, probably at the insinuation that he was a _kid,_ but Sam found himself feeling in just as high spirits as his brother, and he had to push down a smile of his own as he suggested heading back to the motel he and Dean had rented for the weekend, leaving a proper investigation of the hospital to the morning.

After all, he had a trail to go on now—and, if he followed it all the way to the end, the hope that this entire fever dream (a fever dream that involved shrinking, hippie witches, and homophobic not-quite-dead people) would soon be put to rest.

* * *

"But how do you _know_ there's something wrong with my ears?"

"I am a diminished angel, but I am still an angel. I can see exactly how your inner ear nerves have warped, the precise degree to which your sensory cells have been injured. If I do not take measures to heal this now, the damage will be permanent."

"Okay, yeah, but—"

"Why are you fighting me, Sam?"

Sam felt a little bit like a child trying to avoid a bath, or a cat avoiding the kennel that would take it to the vet. He was crouched between two massive palms, one hand pressed to the marbled surface of the motel bathroom counter, the other fisting hair off his scalp, ready to bolt if Cas tried anything funny, like grabbing him and covering him with angel kisses. Cas wasn't wearing the fedora anymore, and Sam wasn't wearing earplugs, but that didn't go one inch towards bettering the current situation; neither did the fact that Dean was laid out on one of the modestly furnished beds in the next room, flipping through motel cable channels, and therefore in no position to come running if Sam yelled. "You really, really don't have to do this, Cas," he said again, and the more stubbornly he resisted, the more fiercely his heart cried out in protest.

Cas actually muttered something in Enochian under his breath—most likely a curse. To Sam, he said, "This will only take a moment," and then the fingers _were_ closing around him, not doing anything, just holding him in place. Sam struggled to free himself, which was laughable; and really, there was something to be said about how laughable this whole thing _was_ , that he would fight when he thought he was going to be healed but just sit there and accept it when he believed death was imminent, and—

"I am not interested in hurting you in any way," Castiel said. His voice had taken on the rough tones of that morning, when he'd thought Sam might be hurt, and the young hunter realized: he was _upset_. "Do you understand me, Sam? I am not trying to hurt you. I promised that I would not do that."

Sam gave up his struggle. He forced himself to look up: up into the blue eyes that pierced right through the curtain of his sweaty bangs, up into the face that was at turns tired and frustrated and so suddenly, heartbreakingly _human_ that it made Sam want to weep forever. "You... you made a promise?" he whispered, throat tight, head pounding with a new and unbearable pressure. "To who, Dean? What would make you even do something like that?"

"I made it to myself. And I have all the reason in the world to ensure to myself that I would not hurt you." And amazingly, Castiel dropped his gaze. Just hung his head right there in the motel bathroom, beneath the row of lightbulbs that Dean had masked with duct tape for Sam's comfort, next to a mirror with a crack so deep and so jagged that it looked just like a sword, the sword that Sam would become someday—and Sam didn't even know where that thought had come from, but at the end of a beautiful fall day spent with his brother and their angel it was still the only thing he could count on, more than death _(so much death)_ and taxes, being the sword that would cut humanity to pieces, drown the earth in oceans of blood. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but _someday_... "Please, Sam. Let me do this for you," Castiel said, his voice seeming to bear him farther and farther away with each beat of Sam's pounding heart. "There are so many things I cannot do, and..."

Sam swallowed down the thing that had been scratching within the taut pipe of his throat, threatening to burst out of his mouth or his eyes or both, and the pressure in his skull eased off by slow margins. He closed his eyes, counted to ten over and over until he no longer felt he was coming unmoored. When he opened them again Cas was looking down at him, his eyes shimmering like pools of water disturbed by a thrown rock. The young hunter breathed out, long and slow, hoping some of his anxiety went with it.

"I'm sorry, Cas," he said finally. "I never thought you were going to hurt me. I'm just... I'm just tired. And cranky." He was acting like a kid; might as well be upfront about it. "Look, um. I'll behave, okay?"

"Do you mean that?" Castiel asked, but already his face was coming closer, those eyes huge and blue and far, far too intense. Sam's own eyes slipped closed again, wishing to hide from the power of that incisive stare, his voice falling to a whisper.

"Yeah..."

"Good. Be still." The fingers that had wrapped around Sam eased him down into a sitting position, but they never left him, and their warmth was already too much for him to bear. Sam felt then that his body was nothing more than a series of concentric circles, each vibrating with its own unique frequency and resonance, and maybe that was how angels healed humans, when you really thought about it; maybe their Grace simply understood the music needed to sing to the spheres, knew the songs required to soothe them back to the way of rightness and life... he wondered, then, how long it had taken for Castiel to resurrect Dean. How many songs had been crooned in the language of angels, how much time had passed before those throbbing, angry circles calmed inside their cradles of music and light... and then every thought in Sam's head was obliterated as the tiny circles in his own body began resolving into a single, shuddering shape. His lips parted on a sigh and he made the mistake of breathing _in_ , right as Castiel was breathing _out_.

It was one breath, and no more, but just like in the coffee house Sam had found its taste so sweet and so _right_ and it filled him up so completely that he didn't even notice how all the tightness and pressure in his head had fled, how perfectly his hearing had been restored. He clung to the sensation like a suckling child, clothed himself in the awareness of warm tendrils sliding feather-soft over his skin, of every hair on his body standing on end. At length he finally willed his eyes to open and he looked up, mild accusation flickering in his hazel irises.

"You smell like pumpkin," he told Castiel's lips, which were still beautiful even when they were pressing into a thin line of annoyance. The angel rose, shifting his vast weight to his elbows, and glared down at Sam in a way that the young hunter found more endearing than threatening.

"You made me drink that coffee," he said reprovingly. "The one I didn't like."

"Yeah, and then you ate my glazed pumpkin donut when I wasn't looking."

"You couldn't have possibly finished it on your own. And Dean helped, if I recall."

"Still. Could've warned me you had pumpkin breath."

"I thought you were partial to pumpkin." Now Castiel just sounded confused, like maybe they were having two different conversations, and Sam couldn't help it; he laughed.

"Cas," he began, shoulders shaking, "I'm sor—"

" _Don't_ use that word," Castiel rumbled in irritation. "It is no business of mine if you wish to be strange. I just won't pretend not to find it completely absurd."

That made Sam laugh even harder, every last trace of tension bleeding out of his shoulders with each breath driven from his lungs. He and Dean got so caught up, sometimes, in looking at Cas like he was an alien visitor from another planet, someone who needed the local customs constantly explained to him, when they were the ones who were children, Castiel simply being the creature that had been good enough—and that was exactly the word Sam was looking for, _good—_ to descend from Heaven to interact with them on their flawed, human level.

"Okay, then I'm grateful," he said, unable to tamp down his smile. "Thank you for healing me." Then he bit his lip, and he added, more daringly: "I like your breath, Cas. It's nice no matter what flavor it is."

"It's not my breath," Cas corrected. "It's my Grace."

"Pumpkin Grace."

"That again," but even as Cas looked away with a put-upon expression there was an unmistakable glint of amusement in his eyes. Sam gave a soft, contented sigh and swiped back the strand of hair that had come free from behind his left ear.

"Why don't angels do it more often?" he asked, and Castiel looked at him from the corner of his eye, his fake sulk losing strength.

"Do what?" he asked, his voice tinged with curiosity.

"Why don't angels... well, breathe?"

Cas turned to meet his gaze fully now. "We don't require it."

"Do you have to require something to do it?"

"As a rule, yes." Cas's voice ran just a little testy at that.

"Breathing is just... it's nice." Sam's fingers went back to his hair and he played with the strands, feeling suddenly like a child again, strange and small. "It lets you know the other person's alive."

Castiel said nothing for a long moment, like he was trying to translate Sam's statement—less the words themselves, and more the very concept of it—into his native language, and not having much success. Then he said, "Humans are the ones whose souls were first fashioned from _pneuma_ , God's breath. It was His first gift to humankind." Sam blinked. "Angels do not have souls, Sam. We only have our Grace. To will our bodies to breathe, to usurp the precious gift of a life that was never meant for us, would be awfully—blasphemous."

Well. Sam had to think that one over. "I don't agree with that," the young hunter finally said. "I mean, God made it so you could inhabit humans, so you must have some of the same stuff in you as we do, right? At the very least, Grace is pretty—amazing." He found himself smiling at the last, because where did he even come up with this stuff? Dean would have thrown a fit to learn just how much of his brother's brain was a composite of the street preaching and tent revival music that Dean had loathed and John had merely tolerated for the sake of getting close to a monster, but somehow Sam didn't mind that. "It's grace that saves us, isn't it?" he added, deciding there was no harm in carrying the theme to its logical conclusion.

"Yes." Castiel sighed. "But God's grace and an angel's Grace are two very different things."

The angel went silent for another long moment, and Sam waited. Then Castiel decided to say something that completely shocked him.

"I imagine someone will need to give you a bath now." There was absolutely no inflection in Castiel's tone to suggest that he thought he was saying something peculiar, but Sam's face flushed scarlet anyway, and his eyebrows nearly hit his hairline—because if _that_ was something he'd never fantasized about before...

"What—what makes you say that?" he stammered, beginning to motor backwards on his elbows like a plastic wind-up frog, intending to scoot off of Castiel's palm and make for the relative safety of the facial towel hanging off the adjacent rack; but the angel's fingers tightened around him, cutting off all hope of escape, while his face slowly lowered to him, lashes falling dark and heavy on his cheeks.

"Sam, if there is one thing I have observed about you—" Sam gulped, heart sloshing in his guts to hear those gravel tones so close to him now, to be wrapped up so completely in the wild possibilities they represented— "it is that you are a creature of habit. And I see no reason that you would change your hygienic routines, simply because of certain... unforeseen circumstances."

So the angel _had_ taken note of the q-tips—just as he seemed to remember and catalogue everything else about Sam. He'd have been more flattered if he wasn't too busy dying a slow death from sheer horrified embarrassment, among other things.

"I... yeah? Maybe?" he managed to get out between slackened, shaking lips. "But still, I couldn't ask—"

"It is no trouble for me, Sam."

The sound of water rushing out of the faucet was more like the roar of Niagara Falls, and yet it didn't even begin to touch the deafening thunder of Sam's own heart, pounding in his throat. Castiel's fingers lifted gingerly from the sink handle, moved to slowly, deftly unfold the facial towel that Sam had nearly gone running to for cover seconds ago. Watching the easy movements of that enormous hand, how utterly they annihilated all pretensions of personal space, made him realize, in an instant, just how completely helpless he was... and how completely wonderful that felt. All the while he could feel the angel's eyes resting on him, calm and expectant.

Why was Cas doing this? The worst thing, the young hunter thought, was that he didn't even _realize_. However diminished he was, he was still a holy angel of God, not given over to the perversions of humans and their thoughts; not like Sam, whose mind was racing with all kinds of ideas as the sink continued to fill up with water, each filled with even more deviant imagery than the last. As those fingers moved about him with the innocent desire to help, Sam knew that he would never trick the angel into sinning like that. Least of all with the creature that had caused him so much harm.

"I, I..." Sam moistened his lips, barely able to get the words out. "Cas, I have to get _naked_ for that."

He was amazed the angel could even hear his voice, as tiny as it had grown. "I am aware of that," Castiel told him, sounding bemused, and a little annoyed, like he thought Sam believed him to be some kind of idiot. Which was _really_ not the impression Sam wanted to send right now. He tried again.

"So... so if I'm naked, then I'm... uh, I'm exposed."

Oh, yes—that was _so_ much more respectful of the ancient creature's intelligence. Still, Cas's face cleared of irritation when he heard it, and he regarded Sam with something that could only be termed pitied amazement.

"Oh. I believe I understand now." He gave the reflection in the mirror a brief, considering glance, as if collecting his next thoughts, then looked back down at his tiny charge. "Sam, there is no shame in nudity. Your forbears in the Garden were perfectly comfortable with it, and—"

"I can't _strip_ in front of an _angel_!" Sam knew he was sounding hysterical now, but he couldn't help it. Castiel proceeded to give him an incredibly unimpressed look.

"And I can tell you that as an angel, I have seen many humans in various states of undress." Sam figured that was meant to be reassuring, but hearing it still made him want to fling himself from the marble counter. He made one last attempt to save himself, before he completely lost his capacity for reason and let Cas have his way with him, virtue be damned.

"Cas, I—I'd really rather let Dean handle this..."

Castiel's fingers returned to the sink handle. Twisted it until the water stopped. Sam knew without having to look that the water would be perfect. In the silence that followed, the angel's question sounded suddenly too loud. "What difference is there between Dean and myself?"

"Well, he's my brother," Sam said, and when Castiel's expression remained closed, he clarified. "I mean, we've seen each other naked hundreds of times, since we were little. It's just different with him."

There was another brief silence, during which the young hunter dared not to breathe. Then Castiel's head canted to the side, his stare more laser-focused than usual. "So, because your brother has seen you unclothed in the past, it is more acceptable for you to disrobe in front of him?"

He was trying _so_ hard to understand. Sam bit down on another laugh, threatening to bubble up out of him—he didn't want to give Cas even more wrong impressions, and if he started laughing now he wasn't sure he'd ever stop. "Yeah," he said. "I guess that's what I mean."

The blue eyes narrowed. "That makes no sense at all," the angel said.

"I don't know if it's supposed to," Sam admitted. The more he argued the point, the more foolish he felt. Especially since some part of his mind continued to insist on imagining all the ways it would feel like, to be bathed by Castiel: the touch of a deft, light fingertip as it dragged along his sweat-soaked skin, scrubbing him clean, every scant inch of him submerged in wet, inviting warmth. Making him feel new—inside and out.

Oh, God. He really wasn't fooling anyone anymore... least of all himself.

So. Instead of edging around them in a sideways manner, or simply pretending that they weren't there, Sam was forced to examine them head-on now—these feelings he'd developed. He couldn't explain it himself, the attraction the angel had always held for him, until it had come to him in a flash one morning just over six months ago, slumped in a junkyard car after a midnight rendezvous with Ruby, the lukewarm surface of an empty whiskey bottle pressed against his bare thigh and the smoking taste of hours-old demon blood in his mouth: Castiel was beautiful, the very first beautiful thing he had ever known.

And that _mattered_ to Sam. Sam, who had longed for beauty as a child and in return experienced nothing but a lifetime of ugliness: of blood and guts and buzzing flies around a hundred rotting corpses, of cigarette-stinking air in a hundred nameless motel rooms, of the plaintive cries of a hundred widowed women and orphaned children. What he had told Dean three years ago still held. _There's so much evil out there in the world, I feel like I could drown in it..._ It made Sam want to scream, sometimes, the things he had seen and the things he had done; he didn't wear the scars as a badge of honor, like Dean did, or bear them silently as the price one paid for balancing the world's scales, like John. What they did was harsh and brutal and sometimes, Sam didn't even think it did anyone any good.

Which was why, probably, he had shrunk away at his first meeting with Castiel, fighting back tears when he remembered, in a private moment, the angel's calm pronouncement of _boy with the demon blood_. That had taken a long time to get over. Ironically, learning that the reality of angels was just as small and loathsome as the rest of his existence should have helped in that regard, but it didn't. Even so, Castiel— _Cas_ —was different. Sam could see it so clearly even if Dean couldn't. His brother only recognized Castiel's strength, but Sam saw—or thought he saw—the flicker of something else beneath that cold and untouched surface. Something gentle. He had seen the trust the angel had placed in them time and time again, the risks he'd faced to protect them, the worry he'd shown when his own vessel was mortally wounded and begging not to be sent away to Heaven.

Had known the warmth of fingers, delicate and long, cradling his large clumsy ones, and a velvet-deep voice saying his name. A moment of safety and salvation in a world so bereft of such, and he'd never felt it again, until...

"Sam?"

The enormous palm shifted beneath him, uncertain. Sam sighed and chose that moment to let his head go, leaning on the backs of his hands and staring into the eyes that he had grown to love. Granted, there was no good time to realize that you had feelings for the grumpy angel with an eternal five o' clock shadow that he hadn't even grown on his own. But when said angel towered over you by several leagues, while you yourself were so small you barely cast a shadow—well, that was arguably _worse_. Sam didn't know what he was going to do about any of this in the long term, but he had already resolved himself to the one course of action right now that made sense: doing nothing. It was the only way to be fair to Jimmy... and to Castiel, who would never want him that way anyhow.

 _Nothing_ , of course, included keeping his mouth shut about just who was welcome to give him a bath.

"Cas, we can't do this," he repeated, unsurprised when Castiel's puzzled frown deepened. "Like I said, it's just easier if Dean does it. But... thanks for the offer."

Castiel nodded wordlessly and unfolded his hand, setting Sam down carefully on the marbled surface. He made soundlessly to leave, and the young hunter said to the giant, retreating back: "Just give me five minutes to undress, and then you can send Dean in here, okay? Thanks, Cas."

"Yes, Sam," Castiel said... and even though things had transpired pretty much the way he'd hoped, as the door closed with a soft _snick_ , Sam found himself wishing that he hadn't sounded quite so oblivious.

* * *

"This is really freaking hard," Dean confessed.

His brother's hands were cupped around him, covered in soap suds that Sam had to hold his breath to avoid accidentally inhaling and choking to death on—and if _that_ wasn't the single most undignified way for a hunter to go, then drowning in the sink, as he'd done nearly ten minutes before, definitely would have fit the bill. Sam had at first been very firm that Dean was there for chaperoning purposes only—to which his brother's response was to hold up his hands and go _hey, no problem, Sammy, not the first time I've played lifeguard—_ but when the crappy motel faucet began dripping water in his eyes, causing his foot to kick out and dislodge the crappy motel drain covering, which in turn attempted to get revenge by sucking him down along with the water to places unknown, Dean's mama bear instincts had kicked in and the huge hunter had practically dive bombed into the sink to rescue his brother.

After that little fiasco (during which Dean's hair had somehow managed to become as drenched as Sam), his brother was dead set on taking a hands-on approach. Sam only wished it didn't involve being slowly submerged in the water and then lifted out again, like someone at a riverside worship service who couldn't quite decide if they wanted to go the full-immersion baptism route or not. The suds, which Dean had attempted to carefully massage into the wet mop of Sam's hair with the tip of his pinky, were another problem, graduating to bubbles that burned his scalp and occasionally dripped into his eyes and mouth. They tasted pretty awful. Naturally, this picture of humiliation was completed by the fact that Dean was inordinately preoccupied with _not touching Sam's junk_ (as his older brother so eloquently put it), which led to plenty of fumbling moments in which Sam nearly slipped out of the giant fingers entirely.

If Cas bathing him was Sam's fantasy, then what Dean was doing now was sort of a nightmare.

"Damn it," Dean said as another bubble stuck to Sam's eyelashes, finally giving voice to the feelings of frustration he was trying to hold back for his brother's sake. "This was a lot easier when we were kids."

"Well," Sam said slowly, trying to find the words between mouthfuls of soap that would spare Dean's feelings, "when we were kids I wasn't three inches tall."

Dean sighed. "Just face it, Sam. I suck. Cas would be a whole lot better at this—it's that angel mojo of his, or whatever—but no way am I leaving that creepy bastard alone with my naked kid brother."

"Oh my God, Dean." Sam thumbed wet hair out of his eyes, pulling a face as the taste of yet more soap suds flooded his mouth. "You know Cas isn't like that, right? He's still trying to figure out personal space, and if he's not completely up to snuff on bathroom procedure, well, is that really his fault?"

"No," Dean replied evenly, "it's _yours_ , for not taking one for the team and explaining that shit to him."

"Either way, you don't have to keep making jokes about us. I get it. You think it'd be hilarious if me and Cas were a couple."

" _If_ you were a couple? Please. You practically _are_ one." Sam looked away, and if the fogged-up reflection in the mirror showed him pulling a sulk, well, it was just plain wrong. Sam Winchester did not sulk. "Hey, I didn't say I had a problem with it," Dean continued, more gently. "Just... remember to always use protection, and... _hah_..." He couldn't hold it in anymore, breaking down in helpless sniggers, the fingers that were holding Sam shaking and causing suds to go everywhere.

Sam usually didn't have any serious objections to being Dean's main source of amusement—especially now, when there was so little about Sam that put a smile on Dean's face at all—but he felt the intense recoil at his brother's words, his mind calling up a faded image of Ruby shoving a piece of paper in his face, an exasperated sigh blowing past her lips, along with a derisive _apartment was empty, you happy_? Ferocious and inexplicable, it surged in his gut on a tidal wave of bile, the image breaking apart as angry words hissed out from between his clenched teeth like steam from a tea kettle.

"What the hell is your problem?" he demanded. "In case you forgot, there's a _person_ in there. A person that we were just talking to a few months ago. You wanna repeat those stupid jokes to his face and see how yours likes it when he caves it in?"

"Okay, _okay_ ," Dean said, "point taken, god _damn_." Coldness broke out over Sam's soaked skin as Dean lifted his younger brother out of the water and dropped him on the facial towel, marginally warmer from two cycles through the motel laundry room's broken-down dryer, a sour expression darkening his face. "Ya know, I didn't think being shrunk was going to make you an even bitchier nag than usual. It was just a joke."

"Whatever, Dean." Sam kept his face carefully closed even as he drew his shivering knees up to his chest, his soaked hair dripping water down the arch of his spine and between his toes, the latter buried in the fine cloth fibers like they were grains of sand. "Thanks for helping me out with the bath."

"Yeah, don't mention it." Dean sniffed and headed for the door. The doorknob rattled as Dean's wet fingers palmed it and then Sam heard: "A dry spell would do us all some good, anyway..."

Sam stiffened, ropes of hair flopping wetly on his cheeks, his eyes swinging to the door. He almost said, _What_? But Dean was already looking back at him with a neutral expression, one foot planted in the motel room proper, and he realized that Dean hadn't meant for him to hear that last comment at all. Hadn't realized the extent of Sam's sensitive hearing, that it would catch the brush of a word or a phrase muttered in anger. He had hurt Sam, but he hadn't _meant_ to, and for Sam to bring it up now would be...

"Get yourself warmed up, then give me a holler," Dean was saying to him. "I'll bring you your clothes, and we can get you ready for bed."

Sam nodded, mute, to which Dean gave a curt incline of his own head, and he closed the door without saying anything more.

For a long time Sam stared down at the cloth beneath him, as if he did not quite know who or where he was. Then he pulled up a section of the cloth, big enough to wrap around his entire body, and huddled inside. Despite the warmth of the towel on his bare skin—and later, the warmth of Dean's hands as his brother picked him up and placed him in his own jacket arranged into a pile on the nightstand, the thick spread of his familiar musk stealing over him by slow inches—he felt more cold and alone than ever.

* * *

 _"Hello, Sam," says Lucifer._

 _They're standing in a chamber, or an empty field, or inside the archangel's own dark, beating heart. No matter the scenery, two things remain exactly the same: the living darkness that chains itself to Sam's limbs, nips at the tender flesh of his cheek—a maelstrom of chattering voices made high and joyful with the anticipation of a meal—and the fact that the face Lucifer wears is Sam's own. He looks incredibly content, standing there in Sam's plaid shirt and Sam's dark jeans and Sam's unruly hair: content with himself and his existence in a way that Sam can't ever remember knowing._

 _Sam, as per the nature of these dreams, cannot move. At least, nothing but his mouth is permitted to move. After all, only his mouth can say the magic word. Only his mouth can give the **yes.**_

 _Will it be today? No, never. Not ever._

 _He doesn't know how long he can keep saying that._

 _"It's nice to see you again." Sam—Lucifer—sounds particularly conversational today. Sam tries to wrench himself free, moving forwards and then backwards, but it doesn't matter; everywhere takes him in the same direction: straight towards the Morningstar, straight towards his burning destiny. He says, desperately:_

 _"You don't have me yet."_

 _"Yet?" Lucifer looks genuinely puzzled, crinkles forming in the corners of Sam's wide hazel eyes, the fall of hair partially concealing a clenched muscle in his cheek; and it frightens Sam, terrifies him, how well Lucifer knows the quirks of his body, the unconscious tics and clicks and taps with which his engineering daily conducts itself. It could even be that the same medley of motions is playing out on his face this very second. "Sam, I already have you. You just don't know it yet."_

 _"No." Sam is shaking, he's seconds from screaming—but he won't give Lucifer the satisfaction, even if they both know it's there, clawing beneath the surface of his skin. "No, goddamn you."_

 _"God damn me?" Lucifer takes a step forward, shaking his head. "No, Sam. Far from it. This is God's will. From the very beginning, He laid out the road map and the destination. All the little twists and turns you've made on your journey, Sam... they've been amazing. Truly. You've come a long way since losing Jess. You deserve more credit than you know."_

 _"Now I know you're just fucking with me," Sam snarls, but Lucifer's expression holds. He looks fond and proud and so, so sincere. He takes another step, and then another._

 _"Not at all. **For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother's womb.** " Sam recognizes the Scripture falling out of his own mouth and he falls back, farther into the darkness, farther into the welcome embrace of the creatures that dwell there. Dismay fills his lungs like water and he cannot speak. Lucifer speaks for him. **"I praise You, because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be."**_

 _Identical hazel eyes lock with his, as Lucifer now stands mere inches away. "Hmm," he says, still the picture of serenity. "That's an interesting word—ordained. Now, I'm no Biblical literalist, but that sounds pretty darn straightforward to me."_

 _"No—" Sam takes a step back, but there's nowhere to retreat. The darkness swirls about him, glittering with a thousand hungry eyes and caressing him with a thousand malformed limbs, but still they will not take him; and in the end, they too are part of the angel, mere threads of the power that will—does—have him._

 _"Face it, Sam. The Presbyterians had it right. Before you were a glint in the Creator's eye, all of this was destined to pass. The demon blood, Jess, Dean's deal, your little tryst with Ruby—even Castiel, that beloved rogue angel, has a role to play in all this. For now you see through a glass darkly, but in time... face to face."_

 _And they **are** face to face now, toe to toe. Those eyes, pouring out Grace, pulsing with it, hold him in place, ensure that he can't run. Sam can feel that Grace sparking through his veins, can almost feel his mouth moving to form the echo of a word that will damn—has damned?—him forever. Lucifer lifts Sam's trembling wrist to his lips, breathes lovingly across it._

 _His breath is so cold._

 _"I will find you, Sam," he says, whispering against the fluttering pulse, the press of every word on his skin like a kiss. "And I will make you mine. Count on it."_

 _The hungering darkness takes him. Sam feels his flesh rip into a thousand pieces for a thousand hungry mouths, blood like wine and body like bread, splattering the empty space with his innards, and still all he can see through his red-smeared vision is himself Lucifer himself Lucifer **himself**_

* * *

Sam was going to be sick. He knew it even before he came fully awake, before he knew where he was: lying in the bundle of Dean's jacket and not somewhere inside the endless, sprawling catacombs of an archangel's Grace. Even as his body disgorged the food he'd eaten and he twisted in his handkerchief-cum-blanket to avoid spraying himself, he cursed himself for his pathetic weakness. Any Lucifer dream was terrible, of course, but Sam had grown adept at hiding their existence from Dean. On the other hand, that was the first time Lucifer had actually dropped all pretenses of wooing Sam and just shown up wearing him outright.

And he'd been _good_ at it, too.

He felt too hot, and cold all at once. No—he was just cold. Being tied to Lucifer like that, lost inside the endless dark folds of his Grace, was like being buried alive, slowly digested within the slimy bowels of a dank, dying fish. Sam's first instinct was to thank God again and again that Castiel had given him the angel-warding brand, but Lucifer's words twisted in his guts like a hook. What if all this _was_ God's doing? Was all He had wanted from the start? How could Sam ever pray again, knowing that God was working against everything he ever believed in... working against _him_?

The part of Sam that still believed in something immediately denied it. If God wanted humanity done away with, He would have just stopped at the flood, wouldn't have made His promise not to ever allow another disaster like it to happen again. Except Sam had already gone and driven a truck-sized hole through that entire arrangement. So where the hell did that leave—

Sam vaguely recognized that he might be going nuts.

"Sam," a voice said above him.

Sam fumbled in the darkness, freeing himself from the soiled handkerchief with a jerk, which only led to him fetching up against the stray zipper, tripping and falling out of Dean's jacket entirely. He anticipated the slam of his head on the nightstand wood and was wondering how much it would hurt when he instead landed on something soft and warm and vaguely pumpkin-smelling.

A light came on. Not the nightstand lamp, but the one sitting on the long polished table that also housed the room's only television, on the other side of the room. The light was plenty for Sam to see by, and he now had a familiar sight to connect with the familiar scent: that of Castiel's wide and unblinking face. Behind him Dean continued to snore, an unmoving mountain range sprawled across the landscape of the motel mattress, covers bunched around him like foothills.

"Good morning," the angel said, sounding reticent.

For a long moment Sam still could not speak, and he looked around, pretending to seek out the numbers on the face of the digital alarm clock, as if he hadn't just startled awake out of the dream of his own dark future. "It's... it's morning already?" he managed to get out numbly, throat burning.

Castiel nodded. "It is one o'clock. I'm told _good morning_ is a customary greeting in your culture." He frowned when he saw Sam surreptitiously move to block his view of the pile of sick. "Sam, what happened?"

"Uh, nothing." Sam's voice, newly found, sounded too false and high in his own ears. "Nothing happened."

Castiel looked at Sam—and, he was convinced at that instant, _through_ him, right to the pile of sick, right to Sam's own disgraced soul. After a moment's stern, wordless appraisal he said, "You had a nightmare."

"What?" Sam's voice cracked on the word, and he couldn't believe there had ever been a time he had once regularly convinced cops he worked for the FBI. "No, I just got sick. Too much of that donut this morning. Sorry. I'll just—"

"No." Castiel's voice was firm, brooked no argument. "You most certainly had a nightmare. I could sense it."

And _that_ was a statement that didn't make any sense, unless... "Were you—watching me?" Sam asked, the edge that had crept into his voice due more to shock than anger.

Castiel bit his lip, sternness vanishing as the edge of white teeth dragged along the seam, and said nothing. "Yes," he admitted after a small eternity. "I'm sorry. I know that watching someone sleep is socially unacceptable behavior, but your brother often had nightmares after his rescue, and I tasked myself with helping him get through the worst nights. I thought it would be prudent to watch over you, as well."

Well. Sam could understand why Dean's angel might want to make sure Dean didn't suffer from insomnia or night terrors (although it was probably best that Dean himself didn't know, lest he make good on his long-running threat to turn Cas's wings into the kind you dipped in blue cheese), but he was definitely having trouble parsing the second part of Castiel's statement. "What makes you think I'm having nightmares?" he said, still in those cautious tones.

Castiel gave him a look, like _please don't think just because I'm not a human that I don't know the instant you're lying through your teeth_. Or maybe just _Duh_. "Lucifer," he finally said, when Sam remained silent. "He aims to have you. And he would certainly not be above seeking you out in your dreams, where you are at your most vulnerable and alone."

Sam tried to adopt a look of patient skepticism, as if Cas had shared a theory that he found very interesting but ultimately implausible, an act which naturally lent itself to imagining that Cas was Brady, slapping a loose sheaf of poorly scribbled lecture notes against his palm. He shook his head to clear away the image. "Look, I get nightmares, but so does everyone else. It's because I—uh, sleep on my back. You know? It gets my brain all confused."

The look on Cas's face indicated that he did not understand this at all. His head cocked heavily to one side and he said, "Tell me the truth, Sam."

"Cas," Sam pleaded. He knew he sounded helpless and selfish, and yet... "Does it really matter?"

"Yes," Castiel said. Like it was that simple.

"Then answer me this." Sam moistened his lips, forced himself not to tear his eyes away once the question was out. "Do you ever sleep?"

The change in the air was instantaneous. For a long moment Cas didn't say anything at all, his face completely expressionless. Then he turned his head towards the bathroom by the door and blinked. The lights, still muted from Dean's duct tape job, buzzed to life one by one, casting new and more menacing shadows on the motel room's speckled walls. He picked up the soiled cloth between two fingers and swung around, eyes still frighteningly blank as they crossed Sam's, and left the young hunter there on the nightstand, tremendous shadow cutting a path through the pastel-yellow light with a soft padding of feet until it had disappeared into the bathroom. Sam sank into a sitting position and put his head in his hands, which felt suddenly as heavy as a leaden weight.

There was a sound of running water, and then Castiel returned bearing a bottle cap filled with water. Without a word he pushed it in front of Sam and tapped it with one finger.

"Drink," Castiel instructed.

Sam had the feeling that if he didn't comply Castiel would make him sit there until the world was ending around their ears. He lifted the bottle cap with shaking limbs and sipped, slowly at first, and then faster, eager to wash out the taste of vomit in his mouth. The motel water was just as stale in his mouth as it had been on his skin, but that was fine by him. He drank and drank until only a few drops were left, until his stomach was completely full. He splashed the remaining dregs into his face, letting them drip down his face onto the wood, carrying salt and sweat away with them. He only wished it would wash away more than that.

When he was satisfied that Sam had done all he could, Castiel spoke. The answer to Sam's question was everything he had been expecting and somehow so much worse; in his heart he begged someone—anyone—to be forgiven.

"I sleep sometimes." Castiel's face still did not change, his voice gray and aged like stone. "It is the most terrifying thing I have ever known. It is like being unmade and then made again. I was aware when I was born. Did you know that? I know exactly who made me and how. My older sisters made me, and they named me. When I fall asleep and wake up again, I do not know where I have been or what has happened to me. I do not know who has made me, if they made me different, or if I have been destroyed and refashioned into another creature entirely." His voice picked up slightly then, as tremulous as an instrument being tuned. "When angels are made to do penance... when we are tortured, our handlers induce sleep, flattening our wavelengths and dulling our light, in order to goad us towards obedience. We wake up crying and screaming and begging to be good again. That is how I wake up. And I _do_ wake up, because I do sleep.

"I do not dream, Sam," he continued, still in those tones that were dead and yet desperate. "I never have. But to have nightmares—even nightmares like yours... I would welcome that. Because then I would know that I still exist. I wouldn't have to wonder where—where I went."

Sam closed his eyes. "Cas," he began, "I'm so, so—"

They flew open again when Castiel interrupted. "I did not say that to make you apologize. I said that to answer your question. Sam, what is your nightmare?"

Sam's arms drew tighter around himself, seeking the warmth of a heat source that did not exist. He wet his lips again and blinked hard against the dream images, the memory of which still clung to his mind with vicious, near-photographic detail. "I... I saw Lucifer. He was wearing me," he recounted in a stumbling voice. "And... he said that I was already his."

"You are not," Castiel told him simply.

"But— _God_ , Cas, you weren't there, it felt so real..." And Sam trailed off, scrubbing a weary hand over his face, fingernails clawing into his cheeks. Of _course_ Cas wasn't there. He'd just mapped out for Sam in terrifying, torturous detail the consequences of his descent from Heaven. And somehow Sam still made it all about himself. He suddenly wanted to take a running leap off the nightstand.

"He will not have you. He will never have you. I will not let him." Something rumbled through Cas's voice as he said that, something like crashing bells and shattering steel: the stuff, Sam knew, of angel wings. The young hunter's breath left his body with a shiver.

"I know, Cas. It's why you stay, right? Someone's gotta stay on me, make sure I don't break—"

"No." That steel went even sharper now, and Sam drew his fingers away from his body, nearly expecting to see blood on them. "No," the angel said again, more softly. "That is not why I stay with you."

"You're wasting your time, you know." Sam dropped his hand and looked across the room. "With me, with... all this. At least if you found God, you could—you could ask Him—"

"What, Sam?" Cas asked, confounded. "What could I ask of Him other than to help us?"

"You could find out _why_. Why any of it. Why He had to cut and run on you like this, why you had to Fall... why you had to get stuck babysitting me." The corner of Sam's mouth turned up in a smile, even as his eyes stung and every muscle in his neck and shoulders went tight as a drum. Castiel's hand crept over the ledge of the nightstand and stopped, inches away, fingernails trailing along the grain like there was something he wanted to do with them.

"It seems more that you are the one who wishes to ask Him a question," he admitted at length.

"No. Not really." Sam's smile straightened and his neck bobbed in a hard swallow as he collected himself for his next few words. "I mean, I could never ask Him why I am the way I am." He would reject Lucifer's words... because in this life, no matter what _the angels did say_ , some things always remained true. Because it did not matter what one _was_ , only what one did. Because there was a difference, in the end, between God's grace and an angel's Grace. He _had_ to believe that. "It's because I chose to be this way," he whispered. "God's... got nothing to do with it."

"Why do you say that?" And now Castiel was whispering, like their conversation might wake up Dean. Thinking about Dean during a conversation like this—about guilt, about responsibility, about _owning up like a fucking man, Sam, you sprung the Devil like a jack-in-the-box_ —was pretty funny, in a vaguely ironic way, as was the idea that they were even _having_ a conversation like this when he still stood less than five inches tall, Castiel a walking, talking skyscraper above him. Sam breathed out a broken laugh.

"Someone has to take responsibility. Someone's got to admit when they do something wrong. Cas, if _pneuma_ was God's first gift, then free will was the second. And I took that gift, and I fucked it up, I fucked it all up so bad—"

"I let you out of the panic room."

The words fell on him like a weight. Sam's shoulders slumped and his eyes widened, even as they plummeted to the floor and stayed there. The tight thing in his throat was suddenly clawing, screaming to be let out, and he struggled not to choke on it. The motel room seemed to disappear around them, devoured by the thick, oppressive darkness of his dreams.

A full minute ticked down, reflected in the impassive block numbers in the clock display. Then another, and another. The silence held forever.

"I killed that woman, Cas," Sam dared to say when five minutes had marched by. He forced himself to look up again, even as he wanted to keep looking down, gaze penetrating past the smoke-stained carpet of the floor, further and further into the earth, until he could actually glimpse the circles of hell the medievals had once believed to reside in its depths. The circles, he knew, that made up his own body. Castiel's eyes, which had been contemplating him so intently, went even sharper in focus.

"What?" he said, voice raised.

"Cindy," Sam said. And then said again, because he actually _did_ choke on the name, like a demon flinching at _Christo_. "Cindy McCellan. She was possessed. I didn't have the juice to take on Lilith by myself, so I... I took hers." He would never forget the screams, the pleas for mercy. If it had all been a farce, as Ruby insisted afterward— _and fat chance of believing anything **Ruby** says_ , his brother would have said with an attendant shrug and a sneer—then the demon deserved a goddamn Oscar. "She didn't make it."

 _Didn't make it._ Like what had happened was some kind of accident. Like it wasn't completely, entirely on Sam. Sam, the one who had believed himself stronger than Dean. Stronger than the blood, than Lilith... so strong, in fact, that a single voicemail was all it had taken to push him over the edge, drag him down to a deep, dark place he could never come back from. Sam, the pure and noble murderer. _Monster._ He flinched again at the sound of Castiel's voice.

"You were an addict." Castiel was calm, but firm. "Experiencing the deepest, most intense withdrawal symptoms imaginable. Sam, I thank my Father every day that there were not dozens of casualties the day I released you. There very easily could have. But you wanted to help us—the angels, Heaven, my Father—so much, and so only one innocent died, and that only because you thought it was the last hope to stop Lilith."

"She was still an innocent," Sam murmured, past the burning sensation rising behind his eyes. He hadn't been able to cry once since that day—too consumed with fixing his mistake, with elevating Cindy's sacrifice beyond the complete waste that it had been. "And you can't, you can't pretend it was all some noble endeavor. It was _murder_ , Cas. Full stop." He shook, his wrists trembling spasmodically; and Cas would never know, no one would ever know, just how right it had felt—to have his lips on her wrists like that, pressing needy kisses against her slowing pulse as she gradually slipped away, the portent of Lucifer's hungry mouth closing over that paper-thin patch of skin, claiming his rightful pound of flesh. "Maybe I was just high on the blood, or the power... or maybe when you stripped everything away you got to the person that I really was. The person who just didn't give a shit about anyone else, as long as he got what he wanted." The same kid who had turned his back on _saving people and hunting things_ , who ran away to Stanford without a backward glance, dreaming of nothing more substantial than passing the LSAT and getting the pretty girl at Cinnabon to talk to him.

 _People are gonna die, Sam. Oceans of them._

Sam pushed Ruby's words away. Maybe he'd never cared—from the very beginning.

"That is not true," Castiel said, and somehow Sam knew he was reacting to his thoughts more than his words. "If all you wanted was the blood, you would not have stopped with Cindy. You would have found another victim, and another, and another. You would have drunk until your stomach burst. That is the inevitable fate of those who completely surrender to their thirst for damned blood. And you still restrained yourself."

That hot feeling increased, agitating for Sam's attention. The young hunter shuddered and closed his eyes against it. He would never accept any kind of reason— _excuse_ —for his actions, not even one uttered in a voice he loved. Castiel didn't seem to realize, as he went on: "Sam. Dean may not say it, but I will. The means we chose to purify you... they were wrong. Terribly wrong. This was as much our blame to bear—"

"You know," Sam started up again as if he hadn't heard, his lips twisting into a small, reproachful smile, "people like Alana... they never wanted to be what they were. They just did the best with what they had. Me, I had a choice. I made it. I chose to be a monster."

"Sam." Castiel sounded nearly desperate now. "You are not—"

 _"No!_ " Sam's eyes flew open and he was screaming now, the first tears streaking down his cheeks like drops of water chasing each other down a window pane. "No. I'm not the one who died, scared and alone! I'm not the one who gets to be—"

Sam would never know what that next word was going to be. The light was gone now, obliterated by the enormous shadow of Castiel's hand, falling towards him as if making to sweep him off the nightstand, the dark circles dragging him down the rest of the way, down, down, down...

When he opened his eyes again, he fully expected to find every bone in his body broken, to see Castiel standing far above him as he lay on the floor in a twisted heap, an impassive giant regarding the speck beneath him with ice in his eyes and a word of contempt on his lips. For the last thing he would ever see in this world to be the angel he loved bearing down on him, scraping out his life on the carpet beneath the monolithic black shape of his heel.

But he hadn't gone anywhere. And Castiel... Castiel was...

Castiel was holding him.

His hazel eyes sought out the angel's blue ones, looked desperately for a hint that this was all some kind of mistake. Because Castiel _couldn't_ be doing what he was doing; not on purpose, not with the intention that seemed so apparent in the brush of thumb on cheek, gently sweeping away sweat and tears and all the filth that had defined Sam's life until this very moment. It could not be happening. It was a mistake.

His eyes never made it to Castiel's. "Sam," the angel said, and it was with such tenderness that Sam nearly could not recognize it for Castiel's voice: a foreign flicker of sound that seemed to echo off the walls, echo in Sam's ears, all of the love and softness he had so long imagined and so long hoped for, given form in that single diseased word that was his name. Sam's head fell and he felt before he heard the broken sob that passed his slackened lips, was presently swallowed in warm folds of skin as the rest of the angel's hand wrapped around him, holding him safe as he cried, his thumb pressed to his cheek in silent, soothing sentinel.

Oh, it hurt. That tight thing that had lived in Sam—even before Cindy, before Ruby, before he had taken up his chisel and his mallet and begun hammering out the shape of the monster he was destined to be—loosened its suffocating hold and poured like demon smoke from his eyes, his nose, his throat; he was sure it would wake up Dean, the whole world, but for the wall of Castiel's fingers, at once soft and unyielding, absorbing every last trace of darkness. Eventually his sobs grew soundless, but still he shook with them; shook in a way he had never known, never _allowed_ himself to know, since he was a very young child, and monsters had yet to venture beyond the darkness beneath his bed.

"Cas," he gasped; anything more than that was impossible. The thumb drew back slightly, traced a slow path up the shuddering arch of Sam's body. Again he could see the familiar patterns there, unbroken lines flowing along the curve of flesh like those found on a contoured map, not a single drop of the anguished moisture that had tipped from Sam's eyelashes clinging to them. He knew Cas by nothing more than these fingers now: fingers that had held him, saved him. Fingers that had wrapped around his own, whispering _loved_ even as the angel's lips had said _demon—_ the first sign from Heaven that Sam could be good, truly good. "Please," he tried again, not knowing what he was asking for; and then he was being lifted, cradled in an enormous palm like he was made of glass, or sunlight, a heartbeat that was not his own sounding in a steady murmur in his head.

"Sam," Castiel rumbled above him. He made the name sound like a question, a question he would know the answer to, if only Sam would raise his head and look at him. For a long time Sam did not move, too frightened to risk disturbing the soft edges of this new dream. Then he felt the lightest of pressure as the thumb pushed against him, easing him onto his back, drawing his eyes towards the angel's own.

"Sam," Castiel said again. "I have been cruel to you."

The anguish he saw in those blue depths was unbearable. "How?" Sam whispered.

"I did not know what actions you would take, nor what would happen to you, when I let you out," Castiel replied slowly. "But I knew that whatever happened that night in the church, it would haunt you... perhaps destroy you... and still, I did it."

At first Sam couldn't speak, for fear that he would break down again. Then: "I know what Heaven did to you, Cas. You didn't—"

"—have a choice?" Castiel finished, a humorless smile twisting his lips. "How very charitable of you. No, Sam. I won't let you deny me that human luxury. The truth is that I chose to let you out. I chose to make you suffer, and then to Fall. I chose..."

The sorrow playing across his features gave way to uncertainty, and Sam felt a curl of heat in his chest, spreading to his weakened limbs. "What?" he asked.

"I chose to care." Castiel closed his eyes, lashes falling dark against his pale skin, as though the effort of verbalizing had grown to be too much. "About you, and your brother. To... stop celebrating Columbus Day."

Sam's eyes opened wider. "What?" he said again.

Cas gave his head a little shake, his eyes fluttering open again, a perturbed and incredibly human expression crossing his features as he realized he had found the wrong words. "I'm sorry. That metaphor sounded better in my mind."

And strangely, Sam felt the urge to laugh at that. He could already feel the heat in his chest receding to a gentle, nearly pleasurable glow. It was the way Castiel had of expressing himself—with unique, unreserved innocence—and the fact that the angel had used Sam's own words to do it... had remembered the things Sam had told him that morning, sitting in a bakery sharing a sandwich and a cup of coffee, what Dean had derisively called a _date_. It was something that Castiel always did—the angel always seemed so careful to commit everything Sam said and did to memory, when Sam knew he didn't deserve to be remembered, not as anything more than a cautionary tale in what stubbornness and pride did to people.

That final realization cast out the warmth in him as abruptly as a snap of cold winter air, blowing out the last embers of a dying fire.

"I don't—I don't get it, Cas," he said. "Why you're doing this. How you could be this—" _Pure and holy and good, I don't even know..._ "You're only Falling because of what I've done."

Castiel went silent for a long moment, and so still that Sam nearly thought he was imagining all of this, but for the calm heartbeat that had nearly replaced the pulse of his own. Then his face shifted, revealing cheekbones carved in shadow, and he said in a voice that was strangely low and uncertain, "Sam, there is a saying in Heaven. _God wills what He wills._ Do you know what that means? I believe you have an equivalent in the human tongue. _Que sera, sera_..."

Sam supplied the last words, unthinkingly. "Whatever will be, will be."

"Yes." Castiel nodded. "The understanding was that everything God makes is perfect. You know, of course, that Heaven rejoices in good news. The birth of a child, for instance, or the sacramental union between a man and a woman. But when that child later dies of typhoid, when that man vomits his entrails on a carcass-strewn battlefield, when his bride—still grieving her loss—is violated by marauders and left for dead on the side of a road... that is also good and decreed and willed by God." A sense of horror crawled through Sam, working its long, cold fingers into his guts, even as Castiel's thumb lowered to brush gentle circles on his chest. "And no good angel would dare disturb their Father's handiwork."

Castiel was quiet again as he looked at him, pain and grief and doubt unfolding in his eyes, as if he didn't know if he should be sharing this, as if he didn't know this wouldn't make a corpse of Sam's diminished faith. He waited the space of a breath and then said, "I... I never liked that, though. I didn't have the word then for it that I do now, but I—I hated it. And yet this was what every angel in Heaven was taught, even before they learned their own names. _God is perfect; therefore, be ye perfect and obey_."

When Sam said nothing, the angel went on, his voice lifting faintly. "I made myself believe that fate was just. That in all things, there must be some cosmic purpose that even angels could not comprehend. I—convinced myself that it was good, when prayers for help went ignored, when we assisted evil men with their evil schemes, when we smote demons with their captive souls still screaming inside... I even made myself believe, when the dam broke and the end of days was upon us, that I was angry at you." Sam shifted uneasily, suddenly wanting to sit up—to flee—but the angel's gentle touches deepened, anchored him in warmth. "That it was because of you my own family came after me with their blades. Such cowardice. I was only angry at myself, that I'd waited so long to act. That I made my choice only after I had betrayed my sister and abandoned my friend, after I had caused so much hurt."

"You still made it, Cas," Sam whispered. "You gave up everything..."

"I know," Castiel said. And then that intent, angelic gaze seemed to grow even more powerful in its focus: powerful precisely because it was both the gentlest and the fiercest thing Sam had ever beheld. An image of a lamb suddenly chased that of the lion the young hunter had held in his mind's eye, and he felt the last traces of tightness relinquish their grip around his heart.

"Sam, I Fall for no other reason than because I choose to Fall. Not because you drank demon blood, or because the powers above and below succeeded in their push to unleash evil on this earth. _Because I choose it_. And you were the one who first taught me that I could."

He paused again, his voice having fallen by now to a whisper. "Will you forgive me?"

"You can't ask that of me," Sam said, and now he did sit up, each sweep of his head on his neck like a rusting pendulum rocking back and forth inside an ancient clock, freeing a new, unwanted tear. "Not me, not _now_..."

"All right," Castiel said. "I won't ask again. I don't deserve your forgiveness—"

"It's not that," Sam said. And just so there could be no mistake of what he meant, he pressed his face into the soft swell of Castiel's thumb, just feeling out the patterns with his cheek. "I just... there's nothing to forgive. I mean it."

For a moment Castiel's flesh stiffened beneath his face, as unmoving as stone. Then the angel relaxed by tiny increments, and the thumb rocked slightly against Sam, manuevering him into a lying position once more. The angel's skin felt so warm and alive beneath his prone, shivering form, and Sam closed his eyes in spite of himself. He could sense all remaining lights in the small space blinking off one by one, leaving nothing behind but darkness; and yet in this darkness Sam knew there would always be a light for him, drawn in the shape of two peaceful blue eyes.

"Thank you, Sam," came another whisper above him. And then: "You must sleep."

"I..." Sam shuddered as he sank deeper into folds of warm skin. "I don't know if I can."

"I will stay here, then." There was a rustling sound of leather being drawn aside, but Sam only mourned the loss of the angel's warmth for a instant before it was there again, this time on his back, one long fingertip tracing an endless curve along his spine as he lay with the weave of his brother's jacket beneath him, a world of familiar scents and touches that automatically made him drowsy. Lying here in the darkness like this, he could almost pretend he was a child again, being rocked to sleep in his mother's arms.

"I'm sorry," Castiel was saying now. "I wish I could put you to sleep properly, but..."

"Hey," Sam interrupted, and while his voice was barer than a whisper, it still managed to halt the angel's. "No more apologies, okay, Cas? For... for both of us."

He didn't add that this was enough for him. Was _more_ than enough. At first Castiel said nothing, but then Sam sensed movement above him, the draft of a fluttering trenchcoat—perhaps fluttering wings. "All right," the angel murmured, his voice sounding much closer; and Sam wondered, just for a moment, what it was the angel saw as he peered down at him in the dark. Minutes ago, he would have dreaded the answer. Now, he thought he knew.

"She won't have this," he still found himself muttering, a lone tear still finding its way down the slope of his cheek.

"She is in Heaven," the voice assured him, deep and implacable. "She is at peace." _  
_

An interminable amount of time passed in that way: Sam relaxing gradually into the cloister of silence and shadows, Castiel a vast presence above him in the dark, as watchful as a lighthouse overlooking a stretch of sand on a starless night. Then he felt something brush away the hair on his forehead, a wave of heat almost like a released breath; the faintest suggestion of sound, slowly crescendoing into a low, steady hum, and then into a song with words unlike any language on earth: _Ecrin nonuca, Oiad, olani hoath omp..._ The sound made something tug inside of Sam, gently drift onto the shores of his conscious awareness.

Pastor Jim's church had not been the only safe house John had arranged for Sam to stay in whenever he and Dean followed a hunt. There had been a cathedral, once; as tall as a real European bell tower and as wide as a sunlit field. Sam had come awake to a choir of a hundred voices, practicing for a Christmas cantata in the sanctuary just beyond the small study he had holed himself up in. He had sat up among the musty books with baited breath, a boy of twelve, held in thrall by the polychromatic tones of male and female voices, instruments of all makes and sounds, all of them led by a single, sweet soprano. That was what Castiel's voice reminded him of now... or no, maybe it was that those beautiful vibrating voices had been a memory of a moment yet to come, an echo of the warm, dark song that spun around him like a web, held him in its embrace.

Castiel's voice rose. It was everywhere now, surrounding him and soothing him. Soon he no longer heard Jimmy Novak's rumbling tones at all, but something altogether deeper, altogether calmer, and altogether _bigger_. His battered soul and tainted heart fought instinctively against the feeling of safety that crept through his chest, but he had no defense whatsoever against the fingertip that resumed its path up and down his spine, spilling heat over him like a blanket warmed by the hearth.

"Castiel," he whispered.

Castiel did not stop singing, not even to tell him to sleep. When he finally slipped under, the world remained dark, and no dreams came for him.


	6. Chapter Six

_Team Free Will heads to the hospital, Cas enlists the help of a Reaper, and things fall apart._

* * *

 **A Quantum of Solace**

 **Chapter Six**

The next morning found Sam, Dean, and Castiel walking (or rather, Dean and Castiel walking, and Sam hitching yet another ride in Castiel's coat) through the automatic doors into the tiled lobby of one of the University of North Carolina's emergency medicine facilities. While Alana had told them, with no small amount of pride afforded to an alumni of the university, that UNC's medical programs were among the best in the country, it didn't stop the tiny hunter from feeling even more tiny and helpless the further they ventured into the building, surrounded on all sides by stark, white, cold walls.

Because even at normal size, Sam had never enjoyed visiting the hospital. Not just because of the aforementioned creepiness—Sam was pretty sure he had that one condition where your blood pressure skyrocketed in the presence of doctors, _white coat syndrome_ or whatever it had been called in that one faded medical manual he'd read as a kid—but ghosts of a more metaphorical nature always seemed to linger in these halls. Typically, when a hunter ended up at a hospital—when _Sam_ ended up at a hospital—it meant that someone had just died, or was about to. And no abundance of pleasant carpeting, soft-cushioned chairs, and outdated reading material could suppress the antiseptic stench, the click of surgical tools behind closed doors as they put together (or took apart) a human being, the piercing bright light that seemed itself a precursor to the final trek towards death.

Dean, for his part, seemed determined to ignore the inherent pathos of such a place (or the fact that he had nearly become a ghost in one of them). Instead he cocked his head at the queue of strangers that had gathered in front of the desk, staffed by a young and harried-looking candystriper.

"Well this is fucking great," he muttered through clenched teeth. "Nine o'clock in the morning and there's already a line. I'd probably need to break both my legs to get any service in here. But at least the help is smoking," he added, his eyes roving shamelessly over the nurse's well-endowed curves as she attempted to answer the phone and direct a visitor to a patient's room using only vague hand gestures and exaggerated eyebrow signals. " _Hello_ , nurse."

When a moment passed without either of his companions acknowledging the hilarity and wit of his statement—or even Cas just rejoindering with something like _this is a no-smoking establishment_ —he fixed them with an even more peevish look. "What's with the radio silence? Yesterday you two were nattering away like a couple of Chatty Cathies. What, did you have a fight or something?"

"It's nothing, Dean," Sam replied. "I'm just tired." He hoped that answer would be enough to dissuade his older brother from launching into the third degree; but Dean's expression grew alarmed, and he reached out to tug roughly at Cas's sleeve, as if he needed someone to vent his frustrations on that wasn't his tiny and therefore much more vulnerable younger brother.

"Oh, no. You don't get to _just tired_ me, Sammy. Not after the amount of beauty sleep you just got." Dean's voice had grown louder now, attracting the attention of a gray-haired gentleman perusing a newspaper in a chair a few feet away, and he quickly steered Cas—and Sam—closer to the doors. "Damn it, if you weren't feeling well, you should have said something before we left the motel," he continued in a half-whisper. "I only asked you about a million times if you were down to clown."

Sam knew it. Already he was reconstructing in his mind those first confused moments upon waking: the slide of a gentle thumb through his hair (which he had initially mistaken for Castiel's, only the touch had been far too brief—furtive and overly cautious, a sensory signature he had learned to recognize ever since he had been injured in his first serious hunt, and Dean had patched him up from start to finish—before being followed up by a rough voice announcing _rise and shine, Tinker Bell_!), the murmur of the television as it transitioned from local news reports into a morning talk show starring a smiling female host teaching a monkey how to make pancakes. The expression on Castiel's face from across the room, where he had apparently stood vigil for the better part of the morning, looking incredibly thoughtful as the monkey proceeded to pour Bisquick batter all over the host's immaculate red pumps.

Sam had rolled over, muttering _five more minutes_ , only to be told by his older brother that he had said that fifteen minutes ago, and that he could either get his tiny fairy ass up or expect to spend the day watching telenovelas while he and Cas went out to take care of grown-up business. " _And_ I'm moving the remote to the bed," he added after a moment's thought, "so good luck changing the channel once it goes to Jerry Springer."

That last comment had successfully roused Sam into something approaching wakefulness—except then Dean had followed the annoying wake-up call with several equally annoying inquiries into his health. Through all this, Cas had said nothing, but Sam could feel the angel's gaze shifting towards him at brief intervals, which he sometimes caught on the occasions he dared to sneak a peek back at him. After a while, Castiel stopped looking at him, and Sam did too. He had no explanation for why he couldn't bring himself to meet the angel's eyes head on—only that if he looked into those fathomless oceans, he'd have to acknowledge what had happened the night before, and somehow it seemed better not to do that. To let it all remain one impossible, fleeting, happy dream; a dream that had nevertheless managed to ease the hellish burden he had been carrying ever since he first began the countdown to Apocalypse, to make him feel—if only for the next few hours—like a new, uncondemned creation.

Now Dean was standing over him with a pronounced glare; and Sam did his best to ignore _that_ too, for much more obvious reasons. "No way am I letting you pass out during _Interview with the Westboro Baptist Ghost_ ," the older hunter declared over his protests. Then, with a forward thrust of his head: "Cas, go get him a coffee."

Cas spread out one arm with his palm up, a frustrated gesture he had either picked up from Sam or Dean or both. "Where am I supposed to acquire that?" he asked.

Before Dean could come back at him with another smarmy-ass remark, Sam quickly broke in, knowing that Cas was most likely referring to the hospital's lack of a barista. "There was a vending machine just outside," he offered helpfully, drawing the angel's eyes back down towards him. "It's probably got some cold canned coffee..."

"Excellent," Dean said, unaware of how the lines around Castiel's eyes softened as they lingered on Sam, or how Sam himself quickly ducked his head to avoid having to see it. "I'll hold our place in line. Also, if you see any Snickers in there, get me two of them. If I'm gonna be kicking ghost ass, I require a breakfast of champions."

Cas accepted Dean's remark without comment, moving past him back through the automatic doors, then a few feet along the concrete wall where Sam had first spied the vending machine. The young hunter was grateful for the reprieve, however short-lived, from the sterile hospital odors, and he took a deep breath, trying to soak up the autumn scents lingering in the morning breeze. Castiel paused when he reached the machine and stood there for a long moment, considering.

"I think I know how to do this," he said, but it sounded more like a question the way he said it—albeit a question he didn't want to be handed the answer to. Sam helpfully kept his mouth shut; no trouble for him, as being alone with Castiel was causing the young hunter no small amount of anxiety. The seraph continued to study the machine, his fingers drifting along the large block letters announcing the prices as if they were written in Braille, and narrowed his eyes somewhat balefully at the illustrations of soda bottles and candy bars that crowded the edges.

"Just take your time, Cas," Sam told him. He craned his neck back and looked up the vast, gleaming expanse of the machine's plastic-screened face, attempting to let his mind blank out as his eyes picked out rows upon rows of shiny red Coca-cola cans and Starbucks espresso drinks, each one at least three times his height. "If you get stuck..."

His voice shriveled up in his throat when Castiel's face suddenly dipped towards him, interrupting his line of sight to the drinks, all of the angel's attention focused no longer on the complications of purchasing vending machine beverages, but on _him_. "Sam, are you all right?" he asked.

Sam could feel something clench in his chest, but he dutifully ignored it. "Yeah," he said, putting forth his best attempt to sound casual. "I'm fine. Why do you ask?"

"After last night, I thought that I should... check in with you." Castiel said this slowly, hesitating momentarily when he reached the unfamiliar phrase.

 _So. Not a dream._ Sam didn't know whether to feel relieved or terrified by that. He was suddenly aware of his pulse now, jumping like harp strings in both his wrists. "Yeah," he said again, knowing by now that he was just stalling. "Um, about that. I don't really want to take a leaf from Dean's book, but..."

Cas raised one brow. "What book?" he asked.

Sam lifted a hand to his face, running his teeth over his tongue at the angel's endearing innocence. "It's an expression," he said, and in the space between that sentence and the next he was suddenly possessed of a profound sense of loss. "It just means... we should probably forget about what happened last night."

A long silence passed. "Why would we do that?" Castiel finally asked.

Such a simple question, and yet Sam was still thrown by it. "It's... well, it's just..." Sam struggled to find the right words—words that wouldn't amount to _I didn't deserve that. I still betrayed you. After everything, I'm still the boy with the demon blood._ "You didn't have to do any of what you did," he finally decided, raking his fingers through his hair. "And it doesn't change the fact that I still need to clean up the mess I made. It's—easier to move forward, you know, if we don't dwell on it."

Castiel waited for another long moment in pensive silence. Then his fingers uncurled, abandoning the side of the machine, and slowly lowered to his side until they were nearly touching Sam. The tiny hunter resisted the urge to shrink away—even without the angel's touch, he could feel the warmth burning from each fingertip as strongly as if they _had_ gone back to last night, back to that warm and dark space, and Castiel had held him cupped in his palm, small and safe. "That doesn't sound like you," the angel said, and his voice sounded strangely low, disappointed.

"No. I guess it doesn't." Sam sighed. "Look, I know I didn't say this last night, but... thank you. For everything."

"Everything that I did, I did because I wanted to," Castiel reminded him. "You deserved to know that you were not entirely at fault for what happened. And that no matter what, I will... protect you."

Sam had no words for that. The young hunter turned from Cas's hand and looked away, out across the parking lot, where the employee area was already filled with cars. He could feel the tight sensation slowly migrating from his chest into his throat. "There is something else wrong," the angel guessed.

"Yeah." Sam nearly choked the word out. "I didn't tell you this, but the woman I..." He worked his aching throat muscles, forced himself to banish the lump in one hard swallow. "She was a nurse."

Castiel did not speak right away. Then he said, slowly but with conviction, "You are here to help them, Sam. Not to hurt. That has always been your way. Never forget that."

His hand was drawing ever closer as he spoke, until it actually closed that tiny distance, and all Sam could see were the broad ridges of fingerprint pressed into the swell of the angel's thumb. Sam closed his eyes, but Cas didn't touch him. Instead his thumb continued to hover there, until Sam realized that the angel was silently asking for permission. The young hunter granted it, reaching out to press his palm into the soft cushion of flesh. While the angel's thumb easily encompassed his entire hand several times over, Sam couldn't help but be reminded again of the moment he and Castiel had first met, the soft hands that had grasped his in a firm handshake, making him feel small in a way he hadn't since adolescence.

"Thank you, Cas," he whispered. "That means a lot to me." _**You** mean a lot to me_ , he wanted to add... and so much more. He patted the huge thumb once, then let his hand fall back to its resting place on the lip of Jimmy's pocket. Castiel's hand, however, continued to linger, palm turning and unfolding before him in a gesture he couldn't make sense of. The tiny hunter blinked with confusion.

"Uh, Cas?"

"I need a dollar," the angel said. "And a quarter. For the machine," he clarified, and Sam's cheeks burned.

"Oh," he said. "Oh, yeah. Gimme a second..." He dove back into the pocket, angling for the familiar surface of the wallet, glad just then that the angel couldn't see his face. When he emerged into the light once more, two dollar bills crumpled in the crook of one arm, Castiel was still looking down at him, lips curved into a smile so gentle that for a moment Sam was struck speechless.

"What would you like, Sam?" the angel asked, his voice as soft as his smile. "Whatever it is, we can share."

It took several moments for Sam to find his own voice. It seemed there was nothing in the world at all except for this moment, and this face, eyes blue and soft but no less fierce, no less filled with fire; mouth generous, and kind, severed lips nearly waiting for something, maybe for him to say—

 _I want to kiss you._ Instead he murmured something else under his breath, something that could have been _espresso_ , and _please_ , and those generous lips lifted into something that was nearly a laugh, a flash of white teeth and a soft exhalation of sound; and when the angel's fingers drew forward to grasp the bills Sam was holding out to him, one of them moved just an inch further and brushed along the young hunter's jaw, so soft and so light for something so huge. Then it was gone, retreating slowly as if nothing had ever happened; but Sam still felt it, the heat of it buzzing on his face, and he wondered at how different a touch could feel from one day to the next, how Castiel's finger on him now felt nothing like last night, and nothing like the hours before that. How much it seemed now that the angel was the sun, and he a sunflower in a field, helplessly turning its face to the source of its life.

He wanted nothing more than to feel that again, but he knew that he wouldn't. More than that, he _couldn't_. So he sank down into his shelter of polyester, alone with his thoughts and his feelings, and he tried to make the moment last, and the warmth, for as long as he humanly could.

* * *

By the time they returned to the lobby, Castiel having waited patiently for Sam to drain his bottle cap of espresso (which admittedly left him feeling a little wired, a little exhilarated, although he didn't know whether that was from the caffeinated drink or the way Castiel had lifted the can to his lips, taken a brief, cautious sip, and then a longer one, apparently finding the taste to his satisfaction, before filling up Sam's cap for him), Dean was the only person left in line. Castiel sidled up behind him silently, and the older hunter shot him a _took you long enough_ look before returning to his attempt to sweet-talk the candystriper behind the desk.

"Theodore Crenshaw, you said?" she inquired brightly, her voice tinged with that same Southern flavor that seemed endemic to everyone Sam and his brother had encountered after crossing the Carolina state line. "Yes, he was admitted here last week. Are you a visitor?"

"Yeah," Dean said, flashing an effortless smile that left most women weak in the knees. It seemed the nurse was no exception; even from his less than ideal vantage point, Sam could still track the faint blush that rose in her high, elegantly cut cheekbones. "I'm his brother. I, uh, just heard about the accident. I was on the other side of the country when it happened, you see—I'm sort of a jack of all trades, and I'm not in the business of answering my cell phone in a timely manner."

"That's funny," the nurse said. "You haven't got a bit of accent in your voice. You must _really_ travel a lot, huh?"

Most people would have faltered a bit at that, but Dean didn't even blink. "You know it," he said, tipping her a flirty wink and a shrug. The nurse's eyes widened and she leaned forward, fingering the name tag that dangled from the end of her employee lanyard. Sam tried but couldn't quite make out the name printed in permanent marker, thanks to the dozen or so tiny pumpkin stickers affixed to the plastic.

"Really?" she asked, still in those _Southern-hospitality-what-can-I-do-ya-for_ tones. "Where have you been working, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Oh, here and there." Dean propped one elbow up on the desk and made a vague waving gesture into the space between them. Sam had to admit, his brother made out pretty well for himself whenever he had to go solo for the investigation portion of a hunt. "I've tracked more miles in my car in the last year than most people do in a lifetime." Which was more or less true.

"Well I'm so glad you could make it," the nurse said, reaching behind the desk and pulling out a clipboard; Sam could only assume it contained some kind of room chart. She began to flip through the sheets, clucking her tongue. "Poor thing—he hasn't had a single visitor since he was first admitted."

"I can't imagine why," Dean muttered under his breath. The nurse's eyes lifted from the chart, radiating confusion, and Sam felt a curse fall from his mouth. Good as he was when it came to assuming an undercover identity, sometimes Dean just got too damn cocky when he had someone of the opposite sex wrapped around his finger—and more often than not, it ended up biting them _both_ in the ass.

"It looks like Theodore is still in the intensive care unit," the nurse reported, somehow managing to sound even more cheerful as she said that. "He was hurt quite badly, you know." She put the clipboard down, looked at Dean expectantly. "I'll need to see a photo ID, please."

"ID?" And now Dean _did_ evince confusion, his mouth falling partway open and his eyes flitting over to Cas, who looked just as lost as he did; but the older Winchester recovered quickly enough, rustling around in his jacket as he pretended to look for a wallet. "Crap," he said, raising his eyes back to the nurse in an endearing _aw-shucks_ manner, holding his hands up helplessly. "I must have dropped my wallet coming off the plane."

The nurse's smile held. "I thought you said you traveled by car."

"Oh—well, yeah, I do," Dean countered, confusion graduating to genuine surprise. Sam just shook his head. If John had been here to see this performance, he would already be assigning both of his sons rock-bottom scores; Dean, for allowing a civilian to get the best of him, and Sam for just sitting there and letting it happen, diminutive size be damned. "It's just, when I heard that poor old, uh..."

" _Theodore_ ," Sam snapped, so loudly that the nurse actually blinked and looked around for the source of the sound. This could _not_ be happening to him right now.

"...Teddy, got himself banged up six ways from Sunday, I couldn't wait. I bought the first plane ticket outta Kansas, and here I am."

Sam winced. It was an amateur mistake. Both brothers had already learned that it was never a good idea to use actual names and locations without being prompted, even if it lent a certain amount of credibility to the cover story. As if bearing out his point—

"Kansas!" the nurse hooted suddenly, making all three of them jump. "I _knew_ you had a Midwest accent. You must have spent a _lot_ of time there. Say, did you ever see my cousin Jethro? Jethro Tull? Now don't be getting him confused him with the rock band," she interjected, before Dean could get a word out in reply. "He's a serious musician. He's played all the major theatres, you know—actually just finished a tour at K-State University. _Please_ tell me you caught one of his shows?" she added hopefully at the last.

"I... can't say that I have," Dean said. The nurse's face fell and her fingers returned to playing with the pumpkins on her employee name tag.

"That's too bad," she sighed. "But when you head back, _promise_ me you'll go see him live. He's an absolute wizard with a hurdy-gurdy. I'd go over there myself, but I just can't get the time off from work."

"Uh, sure," Dean said. "I'll put that right at the top of my to-do list. Now about my brother..."

"Oh," the nurse said, seeming to return to reality somewhat. "Oh, yes." She continued, with the smile pasted back on her face: "I'm sorry, but I can't admit any family members to the ICU without valid identification. It's hospital procedure."

"Right..." Sam could see Dean scrambling to play his last card—that of the come-hither Casanova. "Well hey, tell you what. I may not have my ID on me now, but I won't forget it when I buy you a drink tonight. You, me, nine o'clock? What do you say?"

The nurse's blush grew more pronounced, but her voice remained firm and professional. "I'd have to say no, Mister Crenshaw. I'm very flattered by your offer, but I really can't bend the rules. I hope you'll understand."

"Yeah. Yeah, of course." It was official—Dean had lost control of the situation. Normally this would be Sam's cue to jump in with an apologetic smile or a self-deprecating remark (because where Dean had the market cornered on seduction techniques and pick-up lines, Sam had learned to excel at being the disarmingly gentle giant, and sometimes a little bit of that went a long way), but he was more than a little useless in his current state. And Cas, for all his incredibly helpful qualities, wasn't exactly equipped to defuse an awkward social situation. Dean made a weak remark about coming back with his wallet and turned away from the desk with his shoulders squared, no doubt trying to figure out his next move—but Cas suddenly strode up to take his place, and both Winchesters snapped their heads up to see what the angel was about to do.

"Hello," the nurse said cheerily when she saw Cas. "How can I help..." Her voice trailed off and her eyelids drooped when the angel suddenly leaned a few inches forward and pressed a finger against her forehead. She swayed once, like a tree that had been cut and was ready to fall. "...you..."

"There is a matter that requires your attention," the angel said. There was nothing particularly hypnotic about the way he said it, but the candystriper still nodded slowly, dreamily, and looked off in the direction of the automatic doors. She slumped forward another inch, and another, but didn't fall; it seemed to Sam that Castiel's finger was the only thing keeping her from crashing to the floor outright. "An electrical malfunction," the angel continued calmly. "Mister Crenshaw is here to repair it. I am his assistant. We will need to see your clipboard."

"Yes," the nurse whispered. She slid the chart across the desk. Presently Cas took his finger away, careful to ensure that she didn't lose her balance, and handed it over to Dean, who looked at him as if he had grown another head. Cas ignored him.

"Let's go," he said.

As they headed out into the hall, following signs for the intensive care unit, Dean turned to the angel once more. "Jesus, Cas. You couldn't have helped a guy out sooner? I was freaking dying back there."

"I... wasn't sure it would work," Cas admitted. "My Grace has become less sufficient the longer I remain separated from the Host."

"And what was that whole thing with her cousin?" Dean continued as if he hadn't heard, throwing a look back over his shoulder at the help desk right before they rounded the corner to the elevators and it disappeared from view. Sam knew it was a blow to his older brother's self-esteem that he had actually struck out with a member of the under-thirty, administrative crowd—typically the kind of girl he brought back to the motel on an off day. "Jethro _Not-The-Rock-Band_ Tull. What the fuck even is a hurdy-gurdy?"

"A hurdy-gurdy is a stringed instrument that produces sound by means of a crank-turned wheel on the strings," Cas supplied helpfully. "Its development can be traced back to Europe and the East in the eleventh century, where it was used primarily in churches and monastic settings."

"Why am I not surprised that _you_ would know that?"

"I enjoyed listening to it, on occasion," the angel returned, somewhat defensively. "It has evolved quite nicely as an instrument over the centuries, although my favorite use of it was during the Aquarian Exposition in 1969."

Dean actually stopped at that, turning a goggle-eyed expression on Cas. "No shit," he breathed. "You were at _Woodstock_?"

Castiel nodded. The older hunter huffed an incredulous laugh and actually threw an arm over the seraph's shoulders.

"Oh, you and me are _definitely_ having a beer when this is all over," he pronounced. Castiel stared at his hand, nonplussed.

"Uh, guys, we should probably keep moving," Sam said. "Cas, how long is that... um, spell... supposed to last?"

"I'm not certain," Cas said, shrugging off Dean's hand and resuming their walk until they were in front of the dock of elevator doors; Sam could hear Dean hurrying behind them to make up the distance. "She shouldn't remember that we were here, though."

Sam was relieved to hear that. His two larger companions moved into an unoccupied elevator to continue their discussion in private, and the doors slid closed behind them. As the elevator made its ascent, Dean asked, "So if this guy managed to get separated from his own body, then he must be on the run from a Reaper, right? What are the chances it's Tessa? Maybe Cas can say hi for me."

"Dude, she wasn't exactly thrilled to see you the last time," Sam pointed out. "We sort of made it hard for her to do her job." Dean just rolled his eyes, unwilling to entertain logic when it came to hot chicks.

"If anything, we did her a favor," he insisted. Then, pinning his gaze to Cas:

"So, that hypnosis thing was a pretty cool trick. What other crazy angel mojo are you gonna bust out once we find this disembodied douchebag?"

Castiel stared at him for a long moment, astonished. "None," he finally said. "There is no angelic procedure for such an eventuality. I had thought you would..."

"What? Salt and burn the guy?" Dean finished for him. His mood had swung back now to anger and irritation, and he threw up his hands. "We can't exactly do that, now can we? Damn it, Cas, I thought you had a plan here."

"No," Castiel replied stiffly. "You just assumed that I did. And there is a saying about people who make assumptions. I understand that it is an unflattering one."

"You're saying you can't even bamf his soul back into his body? Something as basic as that?"

"No," Castiel said. "We can remove a soul from a body, if need be—and I can assure you, there is nothing _basic_ about that." Castiel's tone grew more severe, as if daring Dean to look more appalled than he already did. "As for returning a soul... that's not an angel's job. No angel can force a soul to return to its body if it does not wish to. Much less one that has Fallen." There was a soft _ding_ as the elevator doors slid open again, and Castiel's voice grew thoughtful as he and Dean stepped off onto the third floor. "In any case, what we should be looking for is not the soul, but the Reaper seeking out the soul."

"Have you sensed anything since we first came in, Cas?" Sam asked curiously.

Cas tipped his head down to look at Sam. "No," he said, sounding troubled. "I haven't felt anything. And I should have, since hospitals are prime Reaping grounds. I think... I think my Grace may be too weak for that."

"Our luck just keeps getting better and better," Dean growled, shouldering his way past them. "We don't have a plan, and our resident angel is on the fritz, with no mechanic in sight."

Castiel stared at his back. "His metaphors only become more impenetrable," he muttered to Sam, giving a slight shake of his head.

"Just ignore him, Cas," Sam replied. "We'll figure this out." But even he was at a loss to explain how they could put a stop to Theodore's spirit, short of actually disposing of the comatose vessel (which was really just a fancy way of saying _committing_ _murder_ ), or waiting for someone new to be accosted, which came with its own set of problems. There was, finally, the possibility of using Alana as bait to draw out the angry spirit's presence—a gambit he was certain the witch would agree to, given how worried she'd been about her friends the night before—but that was really only supposed to be a last resort, and Sam didn't care for it in the first place.

Presently the trio reached a green door, left slightly ajar, marked with a cream-colored sign reading CRENSHAW, T. Dean peeked his head through the gap, then motioned to Castiel to follow him inside.

The room was surprisingly bare. The only indication that it had been used to house a patient, other than the sign on the door, was the flat, white, meagerly furnished mattress that had been placed on a gurney by the window, itself adorned with wheels and monitors and an absolute mess of tubes, the latter set up ostensibly for the purpose of administering oxygen and nutrition. Lying on the mattress, his severe expression clear to Sam in the tightly knit eyebrows peeking out from beneath a respirator mask, was a man about Dean's age. What facial features could be seen around the concealing shape of the mask were sharply accented, and his hair was already going to gray.

The man was clearly unconscious, but that meant exactly nothing in their profession. Warily, Dean reached for the iron crowbar inside his jacket as he approached the bed, nodding to Castiel, who followed along at an equally tentative clip. Sam didn't have any weapons with which he could recreate his brother's gesture, so he just tensed and kept an eye out for any sudden movements indicative of poltergeist activity, as the three of them slowly closed the gap between the door and the bed on the other side of the room.

They reached the bed. Nothing happened. Theodore Crenshaw presumably continued to scowl in his sleep.

Dean was the first to break the silence. "Well, this is awkward." He shoved the crowbar back into his jacket, looking inexplicably guilty.

"Allow me." Castiel's head made a full sweep of the room—perhaps seeking out supernatural entities that neither Winchester would be able to see—before the angel stepped up to the bed and placed a hand on the man's still form. After a moment he nodded and withdrew it. "Theodore Crenshaw's soul is not present," he confirmed.

"Well he couldn't have gone far," Dean muttered, casting a suspicious glance around at the bare walls, like he thought the wayward soul would burst through one of them like the Kool-Aid Man. "And one of these creepy ghost wranglers has _gotta_ be able to tell us something." He looked to Castiel expectantly.

"I'll do what I can," the angel said. "But I can make no guarantees."

Dean mouthed his words right back to him— _can make no guarantees_ —and rolled his eyes so far back into his head that Sam was amazed they didn't get stuck that way. "Real mature, Dean," he said, and the older Winchester straightened up with a snap of his head that indicated he either didn't hear or didn't care what Sam thought of his theatrics. He moved away from the bed, seemingly drawn to something that Sam couldn't see. The young hunter followed his brother's movements, which terminated next to the nightstand that stood adjacent to the gurney. He couldn't tell from this angle if there was anything on it, but apparently Dean did; after a moment's silent assessment he lifted what looked to Sam like a Hallmark greeting card, shedding purple sequins all over the tile like flakes of shiny dandruff. Dean swiped it open with one thumb, keeping it carefully pinched between his fingers like it was toxic.

" _I'm sorry this happened to you. You're in my prayers_ ," he read aloud, mouth twisting around the words in disgust. To Sam and Cas: "What the hell? Alana actually left this dick stalker a _get well soon_ card?"

Sam settled for replying with the first thought that popped into his mind. "Hey," he said, only half teasingly. "You just called her by her name."

Dean abruptly shuddered and dropped the card, which floated to the floor in a profusion of sequins. "Yeah, well that's just... anyway..." He coughed and brushed his hands down the front of his jeans, eager to clear away the girly taint. "There's no name, but it's gotta be her. Who else would send a card covered in purple glitter and shit?"

Sam chewed down a laugh. "Aren't you assuming just a tad?"

"Nope," Dean said. "The girl looked like something out of a damn magical girl anime—and so did that atrocity."

"And we all know how much you love your tentacle porn..."

Castiel's head tilted questioningly at that remark, and Dean turned to face Sam with an expression that was sweet and guileless and entirely out of place on his face. "Sammy, you know I love ya, and I've cut you a lot of slack recently," he said cheerfully, "but if you don't shut up, and I mean _right the hell now_ , I will bitchslap your tiny ass across this room."

Sam felt Castiel's body tense within the folds of his jacket, but the angel otherwise seemed to recognize Dean's need to establish brotherly authority with threats of physical violence. Then Castiel relaxed, and he stepped up to the window, peering intensely through the glass. His mouth moved to form a word, perhaps someone's name.

"What is it, Cas?" Sam asked. "What do you see?"

"Yeah, Lassie, what's wrong—did little Timmy fall down the well again?" Sam looked at his brother imploringly, but Castiel ignored them both.

"Perse," he said.

Dean's eyes narrowed in typical incomprehension. "Percy?" he repeated. "What kind of lame-ass name is that for a—"

" _P_ _erse_ is an abridged form of Persephone," Castiel interrupted sternly. "And if you wish for her to help you at all, you will show her the respect that her station affords her."

Sam blinked owlishly, wishing not for the first time—nor the hundredth—that he was tall again, and that he was able to see the things that angels could. "So you're saying you can see her, Cas?" he said, excited. "You can see Reapers?"

"Yes," Castiel said, sounding more relieved than he probably intended. "I can't... sense her very well, but I do see her. I will try to get her attention."

A long moment passed in which he continued to stare out the window, still and silent. "Any time you wanna actually do something would be great," Dean said.

Castiel's head snapped over to him. "I was flapping my wings," he informed Dean icily. "Your senses are just too dull to perceive it." Dean swept his arm up, heedless of the angel's tone.

"Well, flap away, Big Bird, 'cause I don't—"

"Ah," Castiel said, turning away from him to face an empty corner of the room. "Persephone. Thank you for heeding my call."

There was another long moment in which nothing seemed to happen. Sam thought he'd... feel a change in the air, like ice, or some other indicator that one of the grim harbingers of death had appeared, but no signs of supernatural activity seemed forthcoming. He supposed that made the business of ferrying souls that much easier for Reapers. Even so, he found himself exchanging an awkward glance with Dean, who shuffled uncomfortably as Cas stood with his head cocked, apparently listening to the Reaper speak.

"Yes," he said finally. "I'm traveling with these humans. I know that it is not typical angelic procedure, but then—" He stopped, appearing to listen again. "My reputation precedes me? Yes, I suppose it does. I hope that won't hinder you from assisting me. I am seeking out the soul of the man in this bed. He is causing harm to humans, and his activity must be stopped."

"Is she going to help us, Cas?" Sam asked.

Cas gave the hunter a brief downward glance—and even on an angel, he recognized the universal expression for _patience, please._ Sam grew quiet, watching as the angel returned to intently listening. Then: "Yes," he said to Sam. "She's not bound to the will of the Host, but to the service of Death himself. It turns out I am... infamous in certain supernatural quarters, and that makes some wary of lending me aid." Castiel's lips turned up slightly at the corners. Then his smile straightened and he fell silent, as the Reaper began speaking again.

Dean paced back and forth behind them, his teeth practically grinding with impatience. "Oh my _god_ , will you stop shooting the shit with your imaginary girlfriend and just skip to the part where she tells us where this asshole is hiding?"

Castiel spared a moment to glare at Dean, before acquiescing to his demand. "Theodore isn't Perse's assignment, but she's familiar with the Reaper who has been assigned to Reap him to the afterlife. The man won't return to his body willingly, but he also won't go to Heaven; not unless he can be assured there are no homosexuals, unbelievers, something called _pinko commies_ , people who—"

"I don't think we need to hear the rest of that," Sam interrupted quickly. Dean grinned and let his eyes drift towards the ceiling. Castiel, however, seemed troubled.

"Theodore hasn't caused any trouble that Perse is aware of," he explained. "But again, he is not her assignment, so certain facts may have escaped her attention. She has agreed to look for the Reaper responsible for him."

"What do you know, we actually caught a break," Dean said.

"It probably comes as no surprise to you," and Sam realized the angel was addressing Perse again, "but I'm not as strong as I once was, and..." He went quiet one final time, then nodded with gratitude. "Thank you. It's good to see you again, too." And then: "Yes, perhaps another time. A better one."

When it seemed the Reaper had departed for good, Sam decided to speak up. "So what's the verdict?"

"She's agreed to stay in touch," Castiel said. "I'm not strong enough to contact her on my own, so she'll come find me if she finds anything useful. Unfortunately, Theodore's Reaper absconded from the hospital to cross other souls off his list, so it may take her a while to locate him."

"And there goes that break," Dean muttered. He crossed his arms, suddenly decided on a course of action that, naturally, only made sense to him. "Okay, I didn't want to have to resort to this, but I think we're gonna have to split up."

"Huh?" Sam was confused. "Why?"

"Because I'm not waiting around for some chick to bring us a lead, and we'll cover a lot more ground if two of us—okay, _technically_ three of us, counting Tinker Bell—are investigating different parts of the building. I'll keep a look out for those missing kids, and Cas can hunt down the Moral Majority ghost. Sam, you can, uh... sit there and work on your Ken doll impression. I guess."

Sam shot him his most mystified _seriously, Dean?_ expression yet. Dean waved a hand, unperturbed.

"Okay, my mistake—Barbie doll impression."

Sam flipped him the bird. Castiel shook his head, apparently tiring of these inane human games, and turned to Dean.

"Very well," he said. "We will part ways, for now. But the instant you find anything—"

"Yeah, yeah," Dean said, already ready to take off in pursuit of potential prey. "I'll dial 1-800-4-PRAYER. You just take care of Sammy for me, all right?"

"Always," Castiel said solemnly, to which the tiny hunter's heart skipped a beat. Dean, for his part, didn't seem to notice, and he nodded appreciatively at the angel before poking Sam with a well-intentioned finger.

"You, too. Don't do anything stupid, okay? I need you to be around to turn into Sasquatch again."

"Don't worry, Dean, I'm not like you," Sam retorted, straight-faced. "You be careful, too." Dean laughed, his voice a comforting boom in the younger Winchester's ears.

"That's what I like to hear." And then he was gone, the pillar of his presence vanishing into the hospital corridors, leaving Sam alone with the angel once more. At first the small hunter wasn't sure if he and Cas needed to take a moment to discuss how they were going to do this; but Castiel made the decision for him, moving purposefully through the hallways, content to let himself be drawn towards each room, even the occupied ones, and give it a thorough once-over. This led to him being ejected by more than a few nurses, who fussed over the poor man who had clearly lost his way trying to find the right room. Trying to be helpful, Sam squinted around at their surroundings, looking for anything out of the ordinary, but he was somewhat handicapped by the fact that he lacked of any of Castiel's extrasensory perception.

After a while, Sam forced himself to broach the subject he'd been wanting to bring up with Cas, ever since the Reaper had left. It wasn't a question he'd intended to ask, but then one of the words Dean had used earlier rubbed him the wrong way.

"Hey, so earlier it seemed like you and Perse had... well, a history." And swear to God, Sam wasn't trying to sound jealous—given that he didn't even know _how_ a Reaper and an angel, two creatures that lacked even a material body with which to interact with each other, could have a romantic relationship—but he couldn't tamp down the suspicious edge in his voice on the last word.

"Yes." Castiel smiled as they rounded a corridor, but instead of quietly delighting in the moment, as he usually did, Sam felt something unpleasant and acidic surge up in him, seeing that rare expression touch his face. "Perse and I are old friends, of sorts. Angels aren't permitted anything but the most professional of associations with Reapers," he explained, "but I always enjoyed—ah—socializing with them, when I could. They were, and still are, excellent storytellers."

"They told stories?" Sam echoed, puzzled.

"Yes. Stories about you," Castiel said, and now he actually sounded... well, he almost sounded like a child, Sam thought. A wave of relief washed through the young hunter, along with a new appreciation for his angelic companion. Cas wasn't reminiscing on Reapers for their own sake. They were just another means of growing closer to humans; of discovering and exploring new facets of God's favored creation. It was such a _Cas_ thing, Sam was coming to learn, and presently he found himself smiling along with the angel.

"Human stories are fascinating—no less so when you are on the cusp on death," the angel continued. "I have heard many tales of stunning cowardice... and also of unparalleled bravery, and compassion, and love. Humans are never so much themselves as they are in the final moments before they pass on; and Perse had the best stories of all."

"I sort of got the feeling you two hadn't talked for a while," Sam said as they moved on. Castiel peered into yet another empty examination room and stepped inside, closing the door behind them.

"Not for three hundred years, no," he replied, sounding just the tiniest bit amused.

"Well... if you ever want to talk..." Sam had no idea where he was going with this. He bit the inside of his cheek, deliberating for a long moment, before the words he wanted finally poured out of him in a rush. "I mean, I don't have any cool stories to share or anything, but I'd be happy to, you know, listen. If you ever feel like sharing."

At first Castiel said nothing. Then, in a voice layered with something like fondness: "I think you are more fascinating than you realize, Sam."

He returned to his examination of the room without further comment, but Sam felt strangely warmed all the same. After several minutes Castiel shook his head. "Nothing here either," Sam said. "Guess we should—"

At that instant the door slammed open, and everything went to hell.

* * *

Sam saw the demon first.

The angel had never seen it coming, lost as he had been in recounting to Sam the details of his experiences with Reapers, in drawing the young hunter into yet another aspect of his being, something he had never shared with another human beyond his most favored vessels. If it had been a week earlier, Castiel would have seen before Sam—would have _sensed_ , long before the hellbound soul possessing Sandra Fairhaven (he recognized the face from the photo at a glance as he turned; olive skin, closely cropped dark hair, and a lipstick-red mouth, smiling now with sick pleasure rather than carefree youth) had crossed the threshold into the building, its foul presence announcing itself like a beacon. Even a day earlier, and his Grace would have been sufficient to detect the threat.

But it was not. And so he was not.

He slammed to the floor, limbs and essence bound to the words that flung from her lips like knives. He was not familiar with the incantation, but that made no difference to his vessel, which responded with as much vulnerability as if he _were_ a mere mortal shell of flesh. The angel felt his Grace moving within Jimmy Novak, flapping futilely like a pair of broken wings.

Desperately, he sought out Sam. His head had fallen at an angle that would have broken an ordinary human's neck, but it at least afforded him a glimpse of the young hunter, who was struggling to free himself from within the loose cage of Castiel's fingers. Even before he had become aware of his intentions, the angel had seized Sam from his pocket as the spell took effect, saving him from being crushed beneath him in the ensuing calamity.

He could hear the demon's footsteps, drawing closer. Sam found a gap large enough between Castiel's thumb and forefinger and heaved himself through it. He rose unsteadily and swung around to face Castiel, eyes broadcasting panic and dazedness in equal measures. The angel's Grace shuddered, to see his tiny charge made so vulnerable.

Even so, Sam's face shone with brave determination, and he took a few steps closer towards Castiel, gripping a corner of the angel's sleeve to keep his balance. "Cas," he breathed. "Are you okay?"

"I'm all right," he croaked, amazed even that he could still speak. Then, more firmly: "Go." Sam just stared back and remained unmoving, either from fear or an unwillingness to leave him to whatever fate the demon had planned for him. The angel had a feeling it was the latter; and a wave of affection moved through him with such power that it nearly drew a breath from his constricted lungs.

After another moment, the younger Winchester appeared decided. "I'm not leaving you," he declared, running towards Castiel at top speed; but the high-pitched laughter of the demon above them summarily brought him to his knees, clutching his head in pain. An instant later, the demon's shadow moved in like a roiling thundercloud as the last few steps between predator and prey were closed, and Castiel fought a cry of panic as a heavy spellbook fell from a height far above them, landing inches away from his head—but more importantly, inches away from _Sam_. The young hunter pressed his forehead to the floor's surface, in an agony from the sound.

"Sam," Castiel begged through lips that seemed frozen. "Please—you must run—"

"Who knew how fuckin' easy this was gonna be?" The demon spoke for the first time, drawing its words out in a lazy drawl; once more Castiel tried to lift his eyes to assess the threat, but the spell seemed to root itself deeper into his flesh and Grace the more he attempted to move. "Sam Winchester is, _I shit you not_ , the size of a goddamn cockroach, and we've got this little dove locked down tighter than a—"

Castiel could no longer hear its voice. All he heard were his own words in his head as he watched Sam writhing helplessly next to him, mere inches away, near enough that he should have been able to reach out and grasp him at once, to hold the young man close to his chest and fold him in his dying Grace—not to watch him suffer, and die, as this demon no doubt intended for him.

 _No matter what, I will protect you._

He had failed Sam, too many times. He would not fail him again.

And so, with the last of his fading strength, he unfurled the one part of him that remained untied to the physical plane. The one thing impervious to earthly spells, and all the designs of men. The one thing that could save Sam.

He unfurled his wings.

* * *

At first, Sam had no idea what he was looking at. He thought at first that maybe it was his own battered skull that was making the walls of the room shudder and heave around him, turning the solid planes of the hospital room into something sinuous and nearly liquid, like water that had reached the boiling point. He was already struggling to process the appearance of the demon—the vicious black eyes that had locked with his right before Castiel had snatched him up into his fingers like they were eagle talons, right before the world made its plummeting descent into chaos and pain—and the strange, soupy textures only threw him further into confusion.

Then he realized—he was looking at shadows.

And then the shadows coalesced, and solidified, and became... became...

 _Wings.  
_  
They spilled from Castiel's back, a visual feast that rose from folds of unassuming beige cotton like arcs of water from a shining fountain, rapidly taking on weight and form as the angel willed them to manifest. At normal size, Sam would have been fascinated, held captive by the grandeur of shapes almost too ethereal, too holy to look upon directly: like pure joy being transmuted and sung into physical existence. At less than three inches tall, he was utterly mesmerized.

He could see it all. It stretched across the room for what seemed like miles. Every feather, every plume, every vividly detailed pattern and design. The colors deep and rich and dark, and so elegantly constructed; like keys on a piano, strings on a harp, and if only he wasn't so dirty, he might have begged to run his hands over them and play them... it was better than anything he could have ever imagined. And he _had_ imagined, more times than he could count. Sam felt something wet on his cheeks and knew that if he pressed his fingers to them he would feel the flow of tears, not blood.

 _So beautiful_ , he thought, childlike wonder and awe completely casting out all fear, completely destroying the very memory of what fear was. _So, so beautiful—  
_  
And just like that, Castiel was _up_.

Just as he was bereft of words in the presence of the seraph's wings, so too did he have no words to describe what it was like to watch him moving at top speed. Something so massive should not have been able to move with such elegance and grace, to so smoothly descend upon the demon with an open hand and smite it in an instant. The demon opened its mouth to scream as its existence burned away beneath Castiel's palm, but the angel raised his other hand to cover its mouth, stifling its death throes. Only belatedly did Sam realize that Castiel was doing that for _his_ benefit, so his pounding eardrums wouldn't be even further scarred by the noise of the battle. He ducked and braced himself for the impact of Sandra Fairhaven's unconscious body hitting the floor, but Castiel already had his arms wrapped around her, lowering her down with relative gentleness.

"Sam," he said as he knelt, turning his burning gaze on the young hunter; Sam could not identify the look he saw hovering behind his eyes. His wings swept out from his back on either side of him, already retreating back into their shadowy state, and yet still somehow possessed of incredible substance. "Are you—"

The wings shuddered once and his eyes snapped away before he could finish the sentence. Sam followed their sharp gaze over to where three more demons were entering the room, their faces perfectly matched to those of Alana's missing friends.

Three more demons, and one angel.

"Oh God," Sam whispered.

Zachariah stared down his nose at him, regarding him with an even more contemptuous expression than what he was used to seeing on the angel's face. He was still dressed in his typically spotless suit and tie, his bearing understated and casual, and yet his Grace burned with such malice that it sucked all the remaining air out of the young hunter's lungs. His head hammering with renewed ferocity, Sam took a few instinctive steps back. Zachariah smiled.

And then snapped his fingers, pinning Castiel to the floor once more, as if able to convey invisible knives into each feather by the sheer force of his will. The younger angel groaned with pain and a surge of Grace flickered through his wings like electricity—and yet not like electricity, not at all—but they didn't vanish, the shadowy ropes of angelic energy lashing weakly against the walls.

"You know what they say," Zachariah sighed, still business professional. "If you want something done right..."

He loped forward, not even bothering to spare Castiel's prone form a glance, and sat down prettily on the examination table that loomed over Sam, assuming an eternally bored countenance as he crossed one leg over the other. "I swear, I don't even know what I'm paying you vermin for. Less than five minutes with the little angel that couldn't, and one of you still managed to get fried."

"You don't pay us," the demon wearing Josh Bishop said. Zachariah shrugged and smiled again.

"Ah, well—details." He rolled his shoulders back, turning his attention to the younger angel struggling against his invisible bonds, a spark of mild interest in his eyes. "So, _Cassie_. To what do we owe the—"

Without warning, Sam felt himself flying through the air once more, straight towards the heat-conducting metal skirting that lined the room's walls. The last thing he registered before he was swept beneath them into the dust and the dark was Castiel's face turning towards him, drawn with inexpressible worry, and his wings, great shadow-things spreading like ash as they bore him away from the scene of danger as quickly as they could.

 _Run, Sam_ , he heard the angel whisper in his mind, soft as silk and loud as a clarion call. _Run—!  
_  
Sam raised his sleeve over his mouth to avoid inhaling a cloud of dust—or maybe to avoid screaming. Soundlessly he began crawling through the space that was too small for him to stand upright, holding his breath as he did so, no thoughts in his head at all other than getting to Dean and— _staying quiet_. Rationally, he understood that the ward on his ribs kept him cloaked from angels, and that Zachariah wouldn't be able to find him, but the pounding of his own traitorous heart seemed ready to bear his presence out at any moment. The path stretched and swayed before him, seemingly endless.

 _Have to find Dean. Have to figure out what to do. Have to—_

Heaven had taken Castiel from him once already. He couldn't let that happen again. He had to find a way—to stop it—

"Now this is just pathetic," he could hear Zachariah saying. "How far do you think the little insect is going to get at his size?"

"Sam is gone." Castiel's voice was steady. "I sent him away—"

Zachariah snorted; the sound seemed to fill the entire space, to fill Sam's own skull. "Oh _please_ , Castiel. You're running so low on battery you couldn't even shrug off one garden-variety paralysis spell. How the mighty have fallen..." Sam registered footsteps. His panic increased when he realized they were moving, not towards him, but to the other side of the room, where Castiel still lay in a heap of feathers and shadow. There was a sound of someone being hauled to their feet, followed by a thud and a pained gasp as the angel was no doubt slammed into the far wall. "It won't be long until you're a mud monkey yourself," Zachariah continued. "All thanks to the one you insist on protecting."

"He is not to be blamed for that." And then, perhaps because it was his best shot at stalling, the angel said, "You disgrace yourself, Zachariah. Working with demons—even I would not have believed you would condescend to such tactics."

Zachariah conceded the point readily enough. "They weren't my first choice," he answered smoothly. "But then, all's fair in love and war. Particularly when the war in question involves a shortfall of manpower. You learn to take the hand God deals you." He gave a dark chuckle. "And anyway, it _worked_ , didn't it? Your little pets sniffed us out just like a pair of mangy dogs. Or maybe I should say cockroaches. Your Sam Winchester certainly has the look of one now. No, don't explain to me how it happened—I don't care."

Sam moved faster at the mention of his name, as if Zachariah might suddenly remember then that he was still in the room. He willed his hands and knees to stop moving as if through quicksand, willed the pain howling through his bones to lower to a level he could tolerate. He had no idea how many inches—feet— _miles_ —remained to the door. Had no idea what he was going to do, once he was on the other side.

"Still, it does make me rather nostalgic to see a spell of diminishing again," Zachariah said brightly. "The last time I saw one was during the fifth century. Witches were more in vogue then. Lots nastier, too. I seem to recall the recipient being fed to a toad. Lover's spat." His voice lowered, grew more menacing, and Sam's insides ran to ice when he realized that the older angel wasn't addressing Castiel at all anymore. "Of course, I can think of much worse things we'd do to you, Sam. If you don't give yourself up right now."

Sam felt Cas's voice ring through his head again. _Don't_. He kept moving.

"No? Playing hard to get, I see."

The path went on forever, darkness and dust obscuring the way forward. The only indication that Sam was getting anywhere at all was that Zachariah's voice seemed to be getting farther away. Across a length that spanned several football fields, the demons' shoes could be seen pacing the room, pumps and sneakers and even a pair of tie-dyed slippers—Stephen Anderson had obviously been possessed while relaxing in the comfort of his home.

"So, back to my bug metaphor," Zachariah said. There was a resounding thump as a chair was pulled out from beneath the examination table, its serrated metal ends dragging with a wicked screech across the tile. Next moment, he appeared to have settled himself into it, his voice seeming to come from a closer distance. "I think it's a pretty good one—in more ways than one. Like I said, we knew you Winchesters would come skulking around, sooner or later. It's the nature of a roach to be attracted to garbage. So we staged a series of unfortunate events, created a nice big pile of trash to bring you running. Elementary stuff, but beautifully simple. As you'll no doubt discover in a moment." The paper film on the table rustled, the angel leaning forward on his elbows. "Tell me, Sam. How long do you think you can hide from me?"

"No," Castiel said. Then, in a voice so loud it was nearly a cry: "No! Stop!"

For one instant Sam nearly turned back, terrified that they were hurting the angel. But he felt no change to the pressure in Castiel's Grace; only a terrible sense of foreboding, rolling through him like a psychic premonition, and then—

There was a sound of a knife sliding over bare skin, and something dripping behind him.

No. Not a sound.

A _smell_.

The world stopped. Sam collapsed into the dust of the floor, recognizing the sweet tang in an instant. _No_ , he thought, too calmly, too elatedly for someone who had sworn never to partake again, _never never never_ , not after Cindy, not after Ruby, not after the end of the world. _No, no, no, no, **no** —  
_  
Demon blood. It was demon blood. The smell of it filled Sam's nostrils. It filled his entire body. At this size, and with so much of it so near, he could nearly feel himself drowning in it: a drowning that he welcomed, almost as much as he feared. His tongue darted out to wet dry lips, and too late he grasped the folly of that unconscious gesture; the smell of it, hot and oily and familiar like a mother's milk, suffused his mouth and teeth, and a low keening noise of desire tunneled up his throat like long-suppressed sin.

The demon laughed. It sounded much closer now. Only then did Sam realize with dismay that he had been moving backwards. Moving back _towards_ the scent, seeking it out, desperate to lap at the thick rivulets that continued to drip onto the white and unblemished tile. When had that happened? He'd had no recollection, no conscious awareness—

Another sound of parting flesh, this time a few feet in front of him. The second demon's tattered sneakers slid along the floor. He was being invited to come: come and have his fill of the feast they were laying out for him. Sam's vision swam before him, momentarily making it impossible to distinguish the swirl of red from the rest of his surroundings. His eyes watered and his lungs burned: his body cannibalizing itself, as every last bit of him screamed for the one thing he was trying so hard to deny it. It was too hard, he thought. He was too small, and there was too much of it, and all he wanted, the only thing in this world he really wanted—

 _Oh, God._ He prayed, hands pressed to his face, fingers gripping his hair. _Oh, God. Help me.  
_  
He wouldn't give in. He hadn't yet given in to Lucifer, he wouldn't give in to this. He kept, as steady and fixed in his mind as possible, the image of Dean's broken expression as he left him lying there in that motel room, still riding on the high of knowing that he was right and Dean was weak. Of Cindy's tear-streaked face as Ruby's knife slid over her wrists, freeing the sweet black slick he'd fantasized about ever since the panic room, even as the part of him that still loved his brother—loved Heaven, loved angels—vowed to end himself with that same knife the second Lilith was gone. Of every sin he had ever committed, and his one salvation: Castiel's gentle eyes, his even gentler lips, forming the words _you were the one who first taught me I could choose_.

Sam closed his eyes. _What matters isn't what I am_ , he thought. _What matters is what I do._

And then cast his resolve aside, a weak and impotent thing, as the last demon spilled its essence right in front of him: a thick, intoxicating syrup that splashed up and dotted his lips. Sam gave a final agonized cry and flung himself into it headlong, letting it cascade down his shoulders, into his hair—into his _mouth_. Letting it stain every inch of him red as he drank, and drank, and drank, every draught that rushed down his throat even better than the one before.

His last, despairing thought before the demon's fingers closed around him was that he would have gladly drank until he died.

* * *

"Enough of these games," Zachariah said. "We want Dean."

It took Sam several bewildering moments to realize that the angel was holding a cell phone out to him, its top flipped open to reveal a blinking electronic display. The phone belonged to Castiel, but it had been wiped clean of contacts—no doubt a move of quick thinking on the angel's part. He was on the examination table, Zachariah seated in front of him, the older angel's presence looming impossibly large in his sight, even without the enormity of a thousand spikes of Grace searing throughout his invisible wingspread. Zachariah was very conspicuously keeping his distance—like Sam really _was_ the roach he had surmised him to be—but where Castiel had conducted himself with a particular caution and care around the tiny hunter, the older angel flaunted his power openly, wielding his wings with a carelessness that seemed calculated to inspire fear. His face leered at Sam, like a billboard advertisement for an ambulance-chasing lawyer gone wrong. Sam trembled, terror and a sick species of shame finally penetrating his demon blood-induced fugue.

To Cas, he thought: _I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry._

A thick black crust was already drying over his spread fingers. His mouth felt hot and smoking. His tongue sizzled with a copper aftertaste, and his red-soaked clothes stuck to him as with a feverish sweat. But perhaps worst of all was that even after all this—he still wanted more.

 _Sam._ A voice that was not his spoke clearly through his drugged thoughts.

Sam nearly couldn't manage it. But at length he finally raised his eyes, and he looked across the room, his gaze falling upon the prostrate form of the angel he had loved and then betrayed. Castiel remained where he was against the wall, flanked by two of the demons—Stephen Anderson and Agatha Wu. His wings were still spread to their fullest length, though they now drooped weakly, feathers separating in places like the fallen autumn leaves outside, expending obvious effort to keep themselves even slightly aloft. The sight punched a pained breath from Sam's chest; to see such beauty brought so low was like being forced to witness the most wicked vandalism of a priceless masterpiece.

Still, none of that compared to what he saw on the angel's face. The expression so lost, and childlike, and filled with fear. Not for himself—Castiel never feared for himself, never seemed to care—but for _him_. Sam felt his eyes fill with tears.

Huge fingers snapped rudely inches from his face. "Heaven can't exactly wait, Sam," Zachariah said in a voice edged with impatience. Sam looked up through the gauzy haze of his tears, felt reserves of anger coursing through his veins he didn't even know he was still entitled to. "We're on a timetable. Call your brother."

"What? So you can make him say yes? That's what all this was about?"

Zachariah sighed. "I thought that was obvious. _Yes_ , you pissant, we need Dean. I could give less of a damn what happens to you—that ball's in Lucifer's court, not mine. As far as I'm concerned, you're just one more checked-off box on the End Times to-do list."

He pushed the phone towards Sam. Sam ignored it and glared into the angel's smug face, made all the more unpleasant for its hugeness, gritting his next words out through his teeth.

"And what's Dean supposed to think, when his three-inch-tall brother is suddenly calling him from a cell phone? Because, you know, I'm _sure_ that won't look suspicious at all."

"Oh, he'll know it's a trap. But he'll still come. Because _Dean cares_." Zachariah uttered the words with obvious derision. "Even if _you've_ never returned the favor."

Sam felt something kick up in his gut at that. He remained silent.

 _You cannot contact your brother_ , Castiel urged. _Or all will be lost. No matter what they do._

As if bearing out his words, Zachariah's lips curved by slow degrees into a cruel grin. "So that's it, huh? You think we can't make you jump on command? You think we can't lead this ass to water _and_ make him drink? Take a look at yourself, Sam. The proof's all over you—you look like shit warmed over, and then some. You have proven beyond a doubt to everyone in this room that you have the willpower of a twig. And if you're still in denial..." He shrugged. "Well, there's always the Apocalypse."

"That was... I was just trying to help," Sam demurred weakly. His anger was gone now, the only words floating into his empty mind the ones Castiel had given him. He was unsure, suddenly, why he had to prove himself to this creature: this creature that was so petty, so cruel, so far from his conception of what angelic beings were supposed to be. "I was trying to do the right thing."

"Really?" Zachariah's face pitched forward just then, too quickly, his enormous eyebrows wagging at Sam like they were both in on the same private joke. "Sure you weren't just trying to _stick it_ to your big bad older brother? We know about the voicemail, Sam." Sam's blood ran cold. He'd never told... "We know, because we made it." His satisfied gaze shifted to Castiel, whose eyes had widened and face had grown slack with shock. "I'm sure you remember the little conversation we had in the Green Room, Castiel? Well, the one that I had; you just kind of stood there with that constipated expression I'm growing to loathe. I seem to recall phrases like _give him the last push we need_ and _covering all our bases_. Like _Dean_ would ever say all that to his precious little brother. He doesn't have the balls."

Castiel looked at Sam, anguished. "Sam... I never..."

Sam lowered his gaze from Castiel, the older angel's words reverberating through his head. And then the words of the message still saved on his own laptop—the words he knew better now than any supplication, any exorcism, any prayer.

 _You bloodsucking freak._

 _I'm done trying to save you._

 _You're not you anymore._

Dean had never said it. Any of it.

He didn't know whether to feel deliriously relieved, or to scream until his voice was gone... because even if Dean had never _said_ it, the words had not been wrong.

"Hard to swallow, ain't it? To know that you were dancing to our tune this whole time. But then, this _is_ what you were made for." The angel's face never moved, still regarding him with the avaricious pleasure of a cat watching a mouse. He held the phone out once more. "Now make the call, Sammy."

Sam's fingers flexed uncertainly, nearly moved forward to touch the glowing buttons... and then he drew them back, remembering Castiel's sacrifice, remembering what was at stake. Zachariah stared at him for a long, terrifying moment. Then:

"Ah, well," he sighed. "I didn't want to do this." He rose to his feet with nauseating speed, at once sending a jolt of vertigo through Sam's body—the young hunter tensed, expecting a huge fist to slam down and crush him into a fine red paste; but instead the angel turned and he watched, horrified, as he sauntered up to Castiel's paralyzed form. The seraph turned his face up towards his brother, eyes overbright with fear. "It's always so hard on the children, when the parents fight..."

An angel blade fell into his palm.

Sam's heart dropped like a rock into his bowels. He opened his mouth to scream. _"No! **NO**!"_

But Zachariah was already lifting the blade, plunging it deep into the soft plumage of Castiel's left wing, and—

Castiel _screamed_.

The sound that left his mouth was not remotely human. Sam remembered the first time he had heard it, or something like it: sitting around a table with Dean and Bobby, joining hands with Pamela, a feeling of unease threading through him like invisible bugs as the psychic conjured an apparition of the thing that had pulled Dean's soul from hell. He'd felt it more than heard it, back then: like a distant radio wave, tuned to a frequency his ears couldn't detect. But _Pamela_ had heard it, and then—disaster.

Dean had described the unfiltered version, hours later, as _like having someone drilling holes in my ears and then ripping my brains out through 'em_. Sam had been morbidly preoccupied with that image for days, until he finally met the culprit and found him to be nothing like the mean SOB Dean had only been too happy to build up for his unwitting audience.

This time, there was no filter. Nothing to separate him from the awful wall of sound that crashed into his brain and his heart and his guts, engorging every single blood vessel, frying his central nervous system. The walls palpitated like the inside of a rupturing organ, the windows shattering into a thousand pieces, the floor splitting down the middle from a deep crack—the room shaken to its very core by the sheer destroying power of that scream. It should have crushed his skull, at that size, at that _pitch_... but instead the world went black and silent and when Sam touched his shaking fingertips to his ears, he found they were whole and intact but gushing twin fountains of blood.

He made an utterly piteous sound, one of fear and pain, one that he never heard. Huge vibrations traveled through the surface of the table beneath his trembling body, the only indication that the outside world still existed. Then he felt a _snap_ in his bones and his head, like puzzle pieces fitting into place, and—

And he could see again. Sam gasped like a suffocating fish as all of his senses returned in a sudden, sickening rush. Zachariah still remained in his standing position across the room, the fingers of his unoccupied hand raised as if he had just snapped them. Castiel slumped beneath him, whimpering, blue eyes dull and unseeing, teeth grit against what must have been unfathomable pain. Threads of a silvery substance that was neither liquid nor vapor— _Grace_ , Sam realized with horror, once his brain caught up to what his eyes were seeing—were already drying around the cavernous wound in his sleek black feathers, shining with the effervescence of diamonds. Zachariah moved to the other wing.

"I could do this all day, you know. Well, not all day, but you get the idea."

With a great effort the younger angel suddenly lifted his head, his eyes struggling to focus as they sought out the young hunter, as if desperate to know what had become of him. "Sam," he moaned, in utterly broken tones. "Sam..."

"Please," Sam begged. "Please, leave him alone."

"Your groveling is very satisfying," Zachariah told him. "A pity that it's not what I want."

He stabbed the other wing: the knife cleaved straight through the sensitive bone of the shaft. Castiel's eyes widened, the blue of his irises dipping to pure white, and he opened his mouth, but no sound other than a meaty gargle flecked with Grace and blood issued from his outstretched lips. Somehow it was even worse the second time, to know that the angel was expecting the blow and had set himself against it. A huge shudder ran through his vessel and he went suddenly, deathly still but for the weak twitching of his feathers.

Zachariah stepped away from the carnage he had just wrought. He looked bored again. "This is getting us nowhere," the demon wearing Agatha Wu said. The older angel looked up sharply but said nothing, as if he shared the sentiment. "Should we just kill him?"

It began moving even before it had finished the sentence, but Zachariah held up one finger. " _Ah-ah-ah_ ," he said, easily but with a dangerous edge to his voice. "Castiel's just a bit too valuable to throw away. I'm loathe to admit it, but we could do with a few less pencil-pushers—" here he used the knife to gesture to himself, then held the tip to the seraph's throat, drawing forth a gasp from Sam and a fresh moan of pain from Castiel— "and a few more good soldiers in Heaven. Even if Castiel _has_ always been a bit of a bad apple. Spoiling the rest of the bunch. We can fix that right up, though. We always have."

Now incomprehension joined the pain radiating from Castiel's eyes. "Spoiling...?" His voice had dwindled down to a whisper, so weak that it should no longer have been audible, but it still carried clearly across the room.

"Since before Creation," Zachariah confirmed. His nose wrinkled in disgust, and he lowered the angel blade. "Where do you think Anna got the idea to break ranks? From reading _Eat, Pray, Love_? No, you cretin. It was you—you, and your constant disobedience."

"No." Castiel's voice went hoarse on the word. "I was... a good soldier."

Zachariah actually barked laughter. "If you believe _that_ , then Heaven's PR department is better than I thought." The blade swung in a tight arc as he flicked it in Sam's direction, like a campfire storyteller inviting his audience to lean in closer to the flames. "Listen closely, Sam; you two are more alike than you think. Castiel has always been... _special_." His lips drew back to reveal a predatory grin, indicating the particular interpretation he intended that word to bear. "A real pain in Heaven's ass. Sure, he's a whiz kid at combat, but he's always had trouble following even the simplest of instructions. Tell me, Castiel—what do you remember of Sodom and Gomorrah?"

"I remember..." Castiel hesitated for a long moment—so long that Sam knew it could not have been from the pain of his injuries. "I remember it being razed to the ground," he finally said. "Uriel and I carried out the order, under Anael's supervision."

Zachariah's eyes glittered maliciously. "Is that your final answer?" Castiel was silent. "Oh, too bad," he went on. "See, the correct answer is that you refused to go through with it. Not until you had evacuated that one family of sniveling losers. You actually tricked Anna into leaving the field, and convinced Uriel to hold off on smiting that craphole until you had gotten them out. Of course, the whole thing ended up going pear-shaped, and all three of you received a proper reprimand back home." The older angel shook his head. "Uriel got the message loud and clear, but you—you just never learned, and it got poor Anna so _confused_ , trying to figure out your damage. So really, I guess we could say _you're_ the one to thank for her current stint at Bible Camp."

Castiel's head fell, but not before Sam caught the stamp of devastation across his features. "Anna..."

"Now, I could go into all the other times you failed miserably to measure up to our species—the Egyptian plagues, the fall of Rome, that absolute horror show at Tunguska—but like I said: Heaven needs more redshirts, and we're on a tight schedule." Zachariah's blade disappeared and he fisted both hands into the lapels of Castiel's coat, hauling him upright. "Tell your commander I said _hello_ , won't you?"

His voice fell to a rhythmic murmur, reciting words of Latin into the suffering angel's ear. And Castiel's face... _changed_. His eyes shone with a pure, prismatic light corresponding to the colors of his siphoned Grace, pouring from him so effusively that it touched every corner of the room. Sam caught the snatch of a phrase, translated it at once in his head into English.

" _Abrogo terra_ —Remove from this earth... _Hoc angelorum in obse quentum_ —The angels in the service of the following..."

And Sam realized, then. What was happening.

Zachariah was exorcising him. Sending him back to Heaven—back to be tortured, reprogrammed, and repurposed into something that he was not.

" _Domine expuere_ —Lord eject... _Domine expuere_ —Lord eject... "

It was nearly done. The light continued to flow from Castiel's face, resolving above him into a strange, twisting shape that bore no resemblance to a human form. His wings gave a violent jerk and began fading from sight. Shock rippled like gooseflesh across Sam's skin, to watch as the shape— _Castiel's true form_ —grew larger and larger, manifested an array of eyes and scales and tremulous, pearl-white flames; each tongue of fire emitted a bell-like musical tone that was all its own, so that it seemed a divine symphony was unfolding, overlaying the words of the ritual, giving it ever more power.

" _Unde abeo Dei per_ —Through God depart from whence..."

The more furiously Sam groped for a solution, the more his own thoughts seemed to slip out of his fingers like grains of sand. He had to stop the ritual. Had to stop it before Castiel—this beautiful angel that had shown forth God's love long before he had ever been born—vanished and he lost him again, this time forever. He'd done it once before, hadn't he? What had he done? He had...

He remembered. He had killed the demon.

Sam closed his eyes, willing his mind to close with them. To calm. He had done this countless times before, with Ruby. All the tools he needed for the work at hand were right where they needed to be, inside of him.

 _You never needed the feather to fly, Dumbo_ , she had said to him. Her voice so confident, so filled with purpose.

Even if that was true, he'd certainly engorged enough blood to kill the proverbial elephant.

 _Calm... calm. Don't think about it. Don't think about anything._

Sam knew it would kill him.

And yet, if it saved Castiel—he would hold nothing back.

Not even his own monstrous nature.

Sam felt as though his ears were filled with water—water, or blood. The sounds of the ritual in the background faded down to nothing, his focus drawn inexorably away from everything but what was happening inside him: the dark sludge pumping through his veins, the scorching heat spreading like wildfire over his skin, the greasy, raw sensation of meat rotting in his guts. Darkness claimed every inch of his vision, jagged like a knife, giving rise to a cursed second sight—it had scared him half to death, that first time he found he could see without using his eyes, but now he welcomed it like an old friend. He clutched his sticky shirt with one hand, struggling not to vomit as the first waves of nausea rode in like a tidal wave, and extended his other hand.

He sent a final, ironic prayer up to God, then got to work.

 _Like recognizes like._ Sam felt the essence he had been drawn to the moment the demons had first entered the room. He slashed out once, brutally, feeling his knuckles flex with the movement, his lips raise in an unconscious snarl. His strike was decisive, his aim true; the blow landed with more power than he could have ever imagined, and he didn't have to see to know when the first demon fell, face frozen in an expression of profound surprise, before Josh Bishop's eyes fluttered closed and he struck the floor with an earth-shattering impact.

Sam never heard it. Already he was moving on to the next demon, working his psychic fingers into its insides, ripping through the nebulous column of black smoke with a strength unheard of, even when he had slain Lilith. His head was not merely pounding—it was _imploding_. He was vaguely aware of a sickening _crunch_ , like part of his skull was caving in beneath the pressure, but he ignored it; ignored everything, but what he had to do to save his angel.

Then: the final demon. Agatha Wu's eyes rolled up in her head and she screamed, the demonic darkness that had overtaken her at precisely three-fifteen in the afternoon on a Wednesday while searching for fresh fruit in the stockroom at UNC's frozen yogurt shop crushed into nothingness by an invisible fist. She, too, collapsed to the floor, joining the unconscious bodies of her friends.

Every molecule in Sam's body screamed now, strained beyond belief to the breaking point. He was freezing and burning and sweating and aching all at once. But before he could slump to the ground and wait quietly for death, Zachariah's huge face was descending upon him, features twisted into a horrible rictus of divine wrath. Sam began to dry heave, as enormous fingers wrapped around him, began to squeeze him in a killing vice. Tones of his angelic voice bled through his words, rattling the young hunter's teeth in his head, setting every single bone in his body to splintering.

 _"You— **pustulent** little—"_

Then there was another voice, interrupting. A familiar one.

"Heard you were lookin' for me, bitch."

The world went white. Zachariah howled and disappeared; the constricting wall of fingers released Sam with an abruptness nearly as painful as the initial pressure, sending him crashing onto the table like a rag doll. A breath shot out of the young hunter's flattened lungs as he made bone-cracking contact with the hard metal surface, accompanied by a searing flash of pain as he then rolled helplessly onto his back. And then words, floating into the rapidly shrinking sphere of his awareness, thin and insubstantial as a distant breeze: "Sam, oh Sammy, oh Jesus _fuck_..."

"Dean," Sam burbled, tasting fresh blood on his lips. He could barely raise his eyes to look into his brother's wide, terrified face; knew that his bones or his organs or both had been smashed into something unrecognizable. On an instinct he tried to lift his hand, to reach out to the older brother with whom he had long associated strength, and security, and the words _everything's gonna be okay, Sammy, you'll see, okay okay okay._

" _Don't talk_." His brother's voice was firm, but incredibly gentle; so were his fingers, which lowered to grip the young hunter's hand and set it back down at his side. That was a bad sign. Sam began to wonder, distantly and without much interest, if everything from the neck below had actually been rendered into a two-dimensional object. Then he remembered that he was covered in blood: not his own blood, but demon blood, which was infinitely worse. "And for fuck's sake, don't _move_. I'm gonna get Cas. He'll make this right. Now, just hang tight, and I'll be right back..."

Sam's lips moved to form a word—maybe _no_ , or _don't_ —but the shadow of his brother's face was already retreating, and it seemed incomprehensible to Sam, insane, that Dean should leave for help without knowing exactly how his little brother had betrayed him again, let him down. _Dean, I drank_ , he tried to say, but instead he just felt tears roll down his face, joining the dry black matting of blood in his hair.

He sensed an enormous draft, and footsteps to his left. He recognized the cadence and rhythm of them, long before he willed his head to turn in that direction and see who was approaching.

It was Castiel. The angel had risen to his full, towering height, wings obliterating the distant roof of the ceiling above him. The hunter let his eyes flutter open and closed, willing each time his lashes lifted that the angel would disappear: not get closer, and closer, and closer, until finally he was standing right over Sam.

Because Castiel was more than Sam's sun. He was the stars, and the planets, and all the divine firmament. Sam could see them in his wings, foreign constellations and dust clouds and spirals of light spanning the length of his colossal wingspread, more beautiful than the night sky on the most brilliant cloudless night—more beautiful than what Castiel must have seen when he sat with his companions, and sang, and gave the glory to God. Everywhere he turned his eyes he saw nothing but those dark, lustrous, powerful wings, and the wounds that seemed more like black holes, swallowing the light in places, dimming its majesty, even to the smallest degree.

Sam had caused those wounds. He closed his eyes, forlorn.

"Sam." Castiel spoke for the first time, his voice rumbling all around him. He felt something warm and soft lower to him, lift him with inexpressible tenderness, disturbing not even one of his broken bones. A huge finger slid under his jaw, tipping his head up. "Sam," Castiel said again. "Why do you hide from me?"

"Because..." Sam kept his eyes closed. He felt new tears, coursing down his cheeks, knowing that even now there was demon blood flowing through him. He groped for the right words, found none. "You're so beautiful... and I'm..."

"A miracle," Castiel finished. "You are a miracle, Sam Winchester." And then, more gently still: "Look at me."

Slowly, Sam let himself look. The angel had leaned in, face inches away from his outstretched palm, like the first time Castiel had ever found Sam in his cursed condition. The young hunter tried and failed to meet those dazzling blue eyes. His own eyes fell, settled on following the curve of Castiel's lips, which were still parted slightly around his last few words. When the angel realized where Sam was looking, his lips soundlessly pressed closed, stretching into a slow, serene smile.

"I drank," Sam whispered, telling himself that he should look away, _look away now_ , but completely unable to avert his gaze. "And I used my..."

"You used your gift," Castiel told him. His smile never wavered. "You saved those people. And you saved me."

He leaned in again—so very slowly, so very carefully, spanning the last few inches that separated them, lips pressing soft against the dark crown of Sam's head. Sam gasped, to feel that heat spreading over his tiny body—because it was _heat_ , not warmth, that tingled across the surface of that soft flesh, inviting him to take and touch, telling him that he was not dirty or unclean but worthy of this. The young hunter reached up with one bloodied hand, perhaps to push himself away anyway, but when his fingers touched the dark and stubbled surface of the angel's chin, the blood disappeared. So he let his hand rest there, and raised his face slightly, offering up one tear-streaked cheek to the ministrations of Castiel's lips, which brushed the tears away as if they were of no more consequence than all of a man's sins in the face of a forgiving Father. At length Sam's fingers crept higher, cautiously curious to explore Castiel's softness, and the seraph let him, the wall of his fingers tipping him forward by minute degrees, welcoming him further, holding him safe, holding him closer than anything he had ever known.

Sam was ready to go to sleep there, in that strange liminal space, surrendering himself to the beauty of an angel's kiss before he died. But finally Castiel drew his face back, slowly, slowly, and Sam felt himself being eased back against the bracing surface of the angel's fingers, before a scent of such unbearable sweetness that he shuddered and slid into a lying position swept over him. Grace, working in its purest and most potent form.

 _Aslan, you're bigger_ , he heard in his mind, the voice of a much younger Dean, reading from a dog-eared library book to a much younger Sam.

 _That is because you are older, little one._

 _Not because you are?_

 _I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger._

Sam drew in a deep breath, released it. At the same time, so did Castiel. Sam sighed and slipped away, his thoughts turned not towards demons and angels and Heaven, but towards lions and wings and an endless midnight sky, filled to the brim with stars.

* * *

A/N: Sadly, this is where the regular updates end... the last chapter probably won't be available for a few more weeks, as I'm recovering from a nasty asthmatic episode and barely have the energy to keep myself upright most days.

If you've read this far, leave a comment? It will definitely make my convalescence period a little more pleasant to know that I'm doing at least a few things right with this story. :)


	7. Chapter Seven

_Sam and Cas learn they are not broken, Dean concedes a point, and Sam finds himself too big for his bed._

* * *

 **A Quantum of Solace**

 **Chapter Seven**

 _Sam's world is a confusion of sound and color and light. He does not know what comes first or last. He knows only that there is ringing in his head, crescendoing over a passage of long days and weeks and years, finally reaching a fevered pitch—_ _an angelic shriek—so shrill he feels his skull shatter apart. Through the glaze of his disembodied eyeballs he can see blood, sweet and black, dripping from the jowls of a giant feline face. Two faces behind it, equally inhuman, snarling, lapping eagerly at the blood on the ground. His blood. He drank too much and it's all coming out of him. Then he is a cockroach, a creepy crawlie with too many legs, being crushed in huge human fingers, fingers that resolve into claws, the tools of holy war. Broken black wings watch the proceedings, watch_ _ **him**_.

 _Hell's boyking, Heaven's plaything. Wishes and curses, prayer and profanity. Snatches of ancient words from an ancient melody, pouring warm and dark from an enormous throat, the Devil's high and tinkling laughter. All of them war for dominance, each impression conquering the dream in turn, until finally, finally, finally—_

Sam was suffocating.

Even before he opened his eyes he could feel his lips stretching taut over bared teeth, gaping desperately for air like it was something he could bite off and chew. His chest was tight, ribs locked around a breath that was dwindling away to nothing even as it fought to slip outside to freedom. At the same time, his limbs thrashed wildly for purchase: his eyes flew open to watch as his arms instinctively pushed against the foreign shapes that kept him pinned, as helpless as a butterfly, against a wall at least three times his height. When he raised his eyes, trying breathlessly to delineate the edges of his prison, he saw nothing but crawling lines of shadow.

The wall itself seemed nearly to be a living thing. It didn't crawl but _rippled_ behind him, impossibly warm; and yet the warmth was unable to penetrate the cold that gripped his heart, to banish the freezing sweat that stuck to his plain white shirt and his blood-spattered jeans. His arms having proven themselves useless to his goal, the young hunter tried to raise both legs and kick against the huge shapes that held him down. He made a small sound of surprise when the shapes actually pushed back against him, locking his legs, applying ruthless yet strangely gentle pressure—he got the sudden, absurd feeling that he was being scolded for trying to escape. He became aware then of a familiar scent, one that reminded him of both autumn and spring, along with a drumming in his head that could have been his heart but was far too huge, far too removed.

Those two things managed to bring him around, if only for an instant. _Stop it_ , he ordered himself sternly. _Just breathe. Breathe._

He didn't breathe. What little breath he _could_ summon was coming too fast, too shallow in his tortured throat; and even when he managed to calm down more and remember to suck in deep from the gut— _that's it Sammy_ , John would have said, _straight from the diaphragm, nice and slow_ ; and where _was_ his dad anyway—he couldn't quite manage it. His chest continued with burn with ice, a steady throb that reminded him of an infected tooth.

 _Dark. Cold._ He repeated the words in his mind, hoping for some anchoring effect, until he realized that they were running into each other, an unintelligible chant that eventually resolved into the syllables for _thirsty thirsty thirsty thirsty thirsty_

It was like the turning of a key, unlocking a flood of memories— _the curse that had left him less than three inches tall, Dean and Cas, donuts and coffee and witches and karaoke music..._ but there was only one memory that really mattered. The thick black ichor that had coated his skin, filled his mouth... calmed the thirst that was absolutely _screaming_ in him now, screaming to be sated, more desperate and insistent and _raw_ than the most pressing sexual need. Sam remembered, too, the last time he had felt that kind of thirst. The panic room, and the subsequent _drying out_. He had prayed to die towards the end—because worse than the thirst, worse than the black veins that had broken out like a demonic rash along his palms and arms and face, had been the _hallucinations_ , the visions, the drumbeat affirmations from friends and family alike that he had mutated himself into something more monster than man.

He would not go through that hell again. He would escape first, if only to find another Bobby. One who would actually shoot this time.

 _Or drink more_ , a voice that didn't sound different enough from his own whispered sweetly. _Why go that far? There will always be more demons. You could always drink more._ Sam made a wretched noise, both at the suggestion and the fact that he could never bring himself to truly reject it. Having found the chink in his armor, the voice dug deep, morphing into a syrupy singsong of _moremoremoremoreMORE_

"Dean," he whispered brokenly. But he knew already that his brother wouldn't come. He hadn't earned that the last time—deserved it even less now. Even so, the young hunter continued to plead, selfishly hoping he could summon even the shadow of his brother's presence.

"Dean," he said again. "Dean— _Dean_ , just help me, please, Dean..."

He resumed his struggle against the cage of the fingers that held him—because he already knew that he was in someone's hand, if not _whose_ hand he was in—and continued to babble for his brother, a steady stream of sound rivaled only by the heartbeat that seemed to pulse from all directions. He learned quickly enough that he had no strength, either to get away or to continue using his voice, so he gave up on both.

Presently a thumb entered his field of vision. Sam stiffened and watched, transfixed, as it swept over him and pinned him down, easily but without a hint of yielding. The heartbeat grew more pronounced, and now Sam thought he sensed a soft, sighing strain of music above him, deepening and lengthening in cadence.

Sick and helpless and utterly lost as he was, a tiny part of Sam was comforted. He raised his one free hand, feeling out the shape of the thumb that held him, trying to lose himself in those peaceful rhythms, to let them pass through the spheres of his body and expunge the icy blackness. Then he sensed movement, the hand raising to some unknown destination, and while the thumb never left its firm position on his chest, the fingers sprang open slowly around him, revealing a pair of huge blue eyes resting quietly on his own, and silent lips shaping his name like a prayer.

Because it was _Cas_. It was Cas that was holding him, Cas that had been irrevocably harmed trying to protect him—was _still_ trying to protect him, after everything—and all Sam cared about was drinking demon blood. For the first time his mind cleared. He struggled to sit up, and on an instinct he looked for the star-studded map of wings from before, but he saw none. The only thing he was able to make out in the dim light was that they were in an unfamiliar bedroom, and Castiel was lying on a mattress—some kind of futon, close to the floor.

For a long moment the angel and the hunter looked at each other: Sam studying every last detail of that beautiful face, Cas looking at him as if he was trying to commit his very soul to memory. "Sam," Castiel whispered, and although his lips barely moved to form his name, his eyes seemed to smile down on the young hunter. Palpable relief swept through Sam... followed by a sharp, stabbing pain, the twist of a frozen blade embedded deep in his heart. He croaked, nearly expecting to cough up blood; and Cas's expression grew alarmed, the smile departing from his eyes.

"Sam," he said. "Sam! You must calm down."

It was no use. Sam was shaking again— _convulsing_ , as the muscles of his contaminated body howled with the pain of a thousand jabbing needles and his windpipe constricted to the size of a needle. Castiel's fingers tightened around him, securing him in his palm; the young hunter rocked back against it, trying to get a whole, unmolested phrase out between his shivering lips. "Cas, 'm so cold... so _thirsty_..."

At first Cas looked as if he was going to say something else. Then something shifted in his expression, a tiny flicker of resolve that Sam somehow felt all the way down in his gut, and before he knew what was happening Castiel's face was growing larger, and larger, and so was his mouth; that incredible spring-autumn scent overwhelmed him as the pale lips carefully parted, breathed a warm human breath across Sam's sweat-dampened forehead.

"Relax," the angel ordered, as though Sam were a misbehaving fledgling. Sam slumped obediently into his palm. He expected that to be the end of it, but the angel leaned in even closer, face blotting out the thin light remaining in the room. Then Sam knew nothing but the scent of Castiel—spring and fall and a thousand other seasons he could not name, bound together like electrostatic forces by the faintest spice of pumpkin and ozone—and white teeth peeking out from behind outstretched lips, preparing to breathe on him once more. Sam felt something like a great wind lift the hair off his forehead as the angel pulled in air; any other time, any other _person_ , and he would have been terrified beyond belief, but there was something about this moment, so intimate and _right_ , that made him lean forward instead of pull away, instinctively seeking out the angel's heat. He wanted to kiss every last inch of those lips, to curl up and fall asleep against them. He wondered if Castiel would feel it, each little pinprick of heat as the tiny hunter pressed kiss after kiss into—

Castiel blew on him twice. Once again the angel was relying on Jimmy's body to accomplish what his weakened Grace could not; all the same, it warmed his tiny charge, and soon Sam's breathing began working its way back towards equilibrium. At length Sam felt himself being lowered, lowered, until Castiel was holding him cupped in front of his chest and all he could see before him was a wall of blue silk and white cotton, rising and falling against his body with even, deliberate breaths.

"Breathe," Castiel said, his voice somehow all around him. "After me. In, and out."

"Cas—"

"It is the demon blood," Cas interrupted. "You cannot allow it to control you. So, breathe."

Sam tried again. Even dazed and weakened, he felt there was something important he was missing, something he needed to remember. "Cas," he pressed on, feeling all of his remaining air escape with the word, "you said... angels don't—"

"They don't, but I can and I will," the angel rumbled purposefully. And then, again: "Breathe, Sam. We can't get through this otherwise."

And Sam recognized it now—what the angel was trying to tell him, in his own way. _I'm here for you. I won't leave you._ It was the greatest comfort he could have offered him.

Sam breathed. At first the breaths refused to come, trapped somewhere between his chest and his throat, but the massive chest moving against him coaxed them out one by one like notes from a pianist's fingers, patient and slow. Sam clutched at the white fabric that stretched away from him in either direction, his fingers finding the smooth curve of button and the trailing edge of dark blue silk. If he tilted his head up he could see the angel's face sinking back into the pillow, eyes at half-mast, carefully inhaling through his nose and exhaling through his mouth; and there was comfort in that, too. He wondered distantly if this was what it had been like, those first confused moments upon leaving the womb, when he was scared and lost and had needed his mother to teach him to breathe, to feed.

For a quarter of an hour neither of them spoke. Sam felt exhausted, like he'd been running for days—from himself, from demons, from every evil thing under the sun. The feeling was destined to last as long as the tainted blood continued to work its way out of his system, and who knew how long that would take—but now at least he felt some measure of control over it. He wasn't doing this alone. _Safe_ , he thought, letting himself sink into the comforter beneath him, into his sense of Castiel. _I'm safe._

"You were doing it earlier, too," he said at last, his words whispered into the twist of blue tie. "I could feel it. You breathing."

For an instant Castiel's breath seemed to catch—he'd caught the angel by surprise—but then his chest was moving again, undisturbed by the young hunter's observation. "I thought it would reassure you," he said with equal slowness, "to know that I am still alive."

Sam's lips quirked up in a secret smile. Then it fell as he thought of the alternative, which in turn led to the memory of the terrible slashes he had seen in that brilliant black sky: the reason the angel was convalescing in a bed, so profoundly unnatural an arrangement for a creature that could fly anywhere it wanted in existence. And what if Castiel couldn't do that anymore—couldn't use his wings, because of Sam's weakness? "Cas," he said, the panic brewing in him all over again. "What Zachariah did to your wings... I..."

"They will heal." Castiel sounded tired but calm. Sam closed his eyes in relief. "I will hear no apologies from you, Sam. I've lived a long time, and suffered far worse scars than this. I simply require rest." Then his chest _did_ stop moving, his fingers suddenly trembling around Sam. "Compared to the harm that I did to you..."

Sam couldn't even think about that moment without hearing a faint ringing sound in his skull—a disquieting reminder that no angel, no matter how benevolent, could ever be tamed. Even so, he pressed himself further into the cotton folds, hoping his actions were enough to bear out the strength of his next few words. "But that wasn't your fault, Cas," he said. "Zachariah was—God, the bastard was _torturing_ you. Of course you were going to have a reaction. I couldn't possibly blame you for that. And you saved me, so it all turned out okay in the end." He couldn't be afraid of Castiel, any more than the sunflower could be afraid of withering away to brown petals beneath the glare of the sun.

"No, Sam. I failed you." Castiel said this as grimly as if he were stating a sad fact of life. "I failed to anticipate that he would target my wings, and because of that you..."

"No." Sam grit his teeth. "No way, Cas. I am not gonna sit here and listen to you say that."

"I was afraid," Castiel continued, in a smaller voice. "After I healed you, I... I didn't even think I should touch you. I thought that somehow I might—hurt you again. It was Dean who said I should..."

"What did he say to you?" And then, more hesitantly: "Where _is_ Dean?"

He expected to hear the words _in a bar_ , or _on the road_. _Anywhere but here._ But Castiel's answer surprised him. "Dean is debriefing Alana. This is her house," he said. Sam's eyebrows knit with confusion. "We thought it best not to return to the motel room, except to retrieve your belongings. Alana and Dean are probably still in the kitchen. Her friends were here earlier, but I healed them and escorted them to their homes, with instructions to prevent future possessions. They're doing well."

Sam afforded himself a quick glance down at the comforter beneath him. Purple, with cutesy animal designs that he could have sworn he'd seen once on the cover of a Lisa Frank trapper keeper. _That explains a few things._ Aloud, to Cas: "So there's no chance of Zachariah finding us, then?"

"None at all," Castiel confirmed. "The banishing vigil Dean used sent him straight back to Heaven. Not only that, but the victims had access to the thoughts of the demons possessing them. It was only by sheer chance—or perhaps God's providence—that they chose hosts from the same church family. Zachariah didn't care about the particulars when he gave his orders to the demons. He only hoped to abduct enough people in one place to attract the attention of you and your brother. In this he succeeded, but..."

"...but he didn't count on you joining us," Sam finished with a tight smile. "If I'd never been cursed, we'd have walked right into his trap. After all, there was nothing special about the case, no reason to call you. It was the perfect setup." He huffed a laugh. "Man—don't let Dean hear me saying this, but being shrunk was probably the luckiest break we could have gotten."

"Yes, well." Castiel sounded slightly put out. "I've already placed hidden wards on this house, and Dean took the precaution of pouring salt lines. We will be safe, for as long as it takes for..."

 _...for you to detox_ , he didn't finish. "I can't leave, can I," Sam said. He had already resigned himself to it, but he needed to hear it.

"For the time being, no." Castiel sounded apologetic. "That's... one of the reasons Dean wanted me to stay with you. I'm the only one who can safely restrain you. If it comes to that."

Sam lowered his head, feeling the whisper of blue silk against his cheek. "It's all my fault," he murmured. "It was disgusting, Cas. What I did. I was _bathing_ in that blood. Like some kind of wild animal—"

"No." Castiel's tone was unwavering in its certainty. "I know you resisted, Sam. Longer than anyone else could have. You were very brave, and you did the best you could."

Tears pricked at the corners of Sam's eyes, and he buried his face deeper into the fabric. "How could you possibly know that?" he whispered.

One soft fingertip grazed the tips of his hair in response, moved to rest beneath his jaw. Sam startled at that gentle touch, and he found his head tipped back until he was gazing into the angel's fierce eyes. "Because you are strong," Castiel said, his own voice a whisper, and yet as unmistakably clear as if he were shouting from Heaven. "Because you are the strongest human I know. You took the thorn God put in your flesh, and you used it to accomplish His work."

A single tear slid down Sam's cheek. He continued to look up into that resolute face, blinking hard, until the angel's finger finally slipped from his jaw to his cheek, wiping the tear away. Sam clutched at it helplessly, willing it to stay—and maybe Castiel heard his wish, because he didn't move his hand away. "You will heal from this," the angel told him. "It will just take some time."

"How long?"

"I don't know," Cas said. "It would be best if you slept."

"Yeah. I don't think that's gonna happen." Sam shook his head, summoning a watery smile. His breathing was so shallow, his lungs so tight in his chest, that he feared he might suffocate again if he slipped into unconsciousness. The last time he'd done this, he'd been locked up for just a couple of days, although by his estimation it had felt like a couple of decades. He didn't think time would hold any more meaning this time around than the last. At least there were no hallucinations to contend with, and Castiel was here with him—

"Wait," he said suddenly. "Wait." Cas looked down at him questioningly. "Your vessel. Is he okay?" He felt the sting of guilt even before he had finished speaking: for not asking sooner, for needing to remind himself that these precious moments with the angel he loved could not last. Castiel, if he understood Sam's feelings, did not let on.

"Jimmy is unhurt," he replied. "It was only my wings that were harmed, not his body." His eyes flashed with amusement. "I also had to assure him that the damage I suffered was not permanent."

And Sam had to admit, there was something really sweet about that. "Is he asleep now?" he asked.

Castiel nodded. "For the time being. Dean should be here to check on you soon," he added, but the uncertain lilt in his voice suggested that the angel had had that thought more than once in the last few hours. "If having him here would help you in some way..."

Sam shook his head again. Dean wasn't coming for him... or if he did, it would be when Sam was already asleep, when he wouldn't have to look his junkie brother in the face. A more rational part of the young hunter hurried to reassure him that Dean didn't loathe him exactly as much as he deserved— _the voicemail was a fake, remember?_ —but somehow he couldn't make the assurance stick, to imagine a world where that wasn't true. It was, he thought with a stroke of black humor, a little like trying to readjust your entire worldview after finding out monsters were real.

He started when he realized that Castiel was speaking again. "Perhaps now would be the best time to take you up on your offer, then," the angel said.

Sam blinked several times in succession. "...my offer?"

"From before," Castiel said. Sam couldn't be certain but the angel suddenly sounded... _bashful_. Or at the very least, unsure of himself. The young hunter's conviction grew when the angel drew his finger away, carefully shifted Sam in his palm. "I understand that talking is something humans do to pass the time?"

For another moment Sam remained uncomprehending. Then he remembered their discussion about Reapers, and the very last thing he had said to Cas before haywire. "— _Oh_ ," he said, feeling heat creep into his frozen ears; even in the throes of demon blood withdrawal, the angel could still make him blush. "Yeah, I guess we could do that... um, do you wanna—?"

Castiel hesitated. Then he said slowly, "I think I would like you to start, Sam."

"What should I talk about?"

Castiel looked at him. "Anything." The corners of his lips raised. "Preferably something pleasant."

"Right..." The young hunter lowered his head, ears still burning, trying to compose his thoughts. He felt almost too weak to speak at a sustained pace, but right now talking seemed like a very welcome distraction from the ever-present thirst and cold; and he wouldn't have to worry about exerting his voice all that much, Castiel having the patience and hearing of—well, of an angel. And maybe it would take Cas's mind off his own pain, too.

So he talked. He talked about Jess. He talked about those early days they'd spent together: driving to the beach with Brady, cramming in last-minute study sessions at the library, arguing over legal minutiae over half a dozen sticky buns at Cinnabon. About the smell of her hair right before she took a shower, and how he used to think—still did—that it was the best smell in the world. He talked about the fun times he'd had with Dean, little moments that had nothing to do with hunting, such as the time they'd snuck into a baseball game and Dean had bought him piping hot french fries swimming in salt and vinegar, right before he managed to catch a fly ball (granted, he'd caught it in the face and spilled the fries all over his little brother's lap, but Sam had been sworn to secrecy and thus graciously left that detail out). How Dean would hold his hand sometimes when they crossed the street (and when John wasn't looking), and the one time Dean tried to ride a junked motorcycle at Bobby's and just about got them both killed. He talked about the moment he had gotten hurt on his first real hunt, and how Dean had totally freaked. The day the bandages finally came off, and Dean turned to him with a grin and said _you're a real man now, Sammy._

( _Don't call me Sammy, you jerk_ , he'd replied.)

( _Whatever you say, bitch_ , Dean had laughed.)

Most of the time he wasn't sure if Castiel understood a thing he was saying. Sam could be a gifted speaker and conversational partner when he needed to be, but all of the oratory skills he'd put to use tended to go out the window the second he was expected to talk at length in front of someone he found attractive: Jess, Bela Talbot... and now Castiel. He stumbled over his words at certain points, rambled at others, nearly said _I'm sorry_ three times in less than a minute while trying to describe an arcade game Dean used to slam quarters into like a slot machine addict (the last a transgression that Castiel didn't look prepared to forgive; but then it really _was_ a stupid game, something about zombie aliens taking over the world, so how could you not apologize for it). But while the angel evinced no obvious reaction to Sam's words, the young hunter was somehow possessed of the feeling that he had never had a more attentive audience.

Eventually, however, all roads led back to the story about the wooden roller coaster. Dean never tired of sharing the harrowing tale to fellow hunters and potential one-night stands alike, yukking it up at least once a month at his dopey little brother's expense. Sam figured it would just be better if Cas got his side of the story first, before Dean got too friendly—or too drunk—with their angel one day and spilled the beans.

"Okay, so picture this. Me and Dean at Jersey Shore, hanging out at Wildwood Boardwalk—it's one of the longest boardwalks in New Jersey, runs about two miles along the beach." No recognition registered in the angel's eyes, but Sam felt himself being invited to go on. "The whole thing is basically set up to be a little kid's dream: games, shooting arcades, more amusement rides than Disneyland. I was seven and Dean was ten. And Dad wasn't with us, he was on a hunt at the time, so..."

Castiel raised an eyebrow, unable to see where Sam was going with this. "So," he repeated.

Sam shrugged. "...so we kinda got into trouble."

"It sounds like you two did quite a bit of that," Castiel commented.

Sam wasn't sure if he was being made fun of, but the angel had a pretty damn good poker face; and anyway, this was a story that needed to be told. "We tooled around for a couple of hours, riding the kiddie rides—I was too short to go on a lot of the regular ones—and shooting out the targets in the arcade. And Dean, he tried to make the best of it, but eventually he'd had enough. He was already a damn good shot at ten and was sick of winning stuffed bears. He wanted to go on a real ride. _The_ ride. _The Great White_." Sam paused for emphasis.

The pause held for several seconds as the angel just stared at him. "The Great White is a type of shark," Castiel finally said.

Sam laughed. "Well, yeah... but it's also a roller coaster." He went on to explain. "It was this wooden coaster with two big drops—the first one dipped down about twenty-five feet, and the second one had to be over a hundred. Although to a seven-year-old kid, a hundred feet might as well be a thousand, so..." He shrugged again. "The point is, I was plenty scared. And for whatever reason, Dean didn't want to ride alone. Said he needed to keep an eye on me." Sam rolled his eyes, indicating just how likely he thought that explanation was. "He was being a little shit, anyway. He'd been filching peanuts from the food stands all day—you know, the ones that come in the little gold and blue packages?" Castiel's face made it very clear that no, he did _not_ know. Sam moved on before he lost the angel completely. "We had one big glass bottle of Coca-Cola on us each, and this kid had just showed us how we could put the peanuts in the Coke and eat them like a dessert. I loved it. It was the only thing I wanted to eat, all day."

"That does not sound healthy," Castiel observed warily.

Sam snorted. "You said it. By the time we got to the ride, I had to have shoveled down, like, half my weight in Planter's. Now, I don't know _what_ Dean said or did to get us on that coaster, but all I remember is one minute I was gaping up at it, and the next we were strapping in..."

Castiel looked worried. Sam decided not to tell him that it was an absolutely adorable look on him. The young hunter allowed himself a secret smile as he approached the story's climax. "So anyway, the ride gets started—and suddenly we're diving twenty-five feet down into the dark, right out of the gate, and I'm screaming my head off. Then come the dips, twists, turns—every scary thing you can think of, this ride had it. I thought my head was going to come right off my shoulders. Dean wasn't doing much better, although to hear him tell the story he was having the time of his life and I was just being a baby. It was the longest two minutes of my life.

"I was crying really, really hard when it was over," the young hunter admitted. "And... I didn't feel so good, although I don't think I caught on at the time; I was still trying to come down from the adrenaline high. Dean actually felt really bad for scaring me like that. So he tried to make it up to me by plying me with all kinds of goodies: chili dogs, deep-fried oreos, nachos loaded down with cheese. He had to trade away all his prize bears with a high schooler for that kind of spread. Needless to say, it wasn't long until I _really_ got sick. And then, well..." Sam felt the sudden need to apply the brakes, before he embarrassed himself in some way he wouldn't be able to take back, but then he mentally shrugged and went with it—somehow he didn't think the angel was going to judge him too harshly. "I threw up everything inside me, starting with those peanuts. I raced over to the side of the pier and projectile vomited right into the sand—Dean said it looked like a Planter's rainbow was coming out of me." And suddenly he realized he was smiling again— _laughing_ , even.

Castiel's eyes widened. "This is a _happy_ memory for you?" he asked, dumbfounded.

"Well, that's the thing about memories, Cas." Sam swiped away a strand of hair that had slipped into his eyes. "Sometimes you just need a little distance in order to really appreciate them. I mean, yeah, at the time, it wasn't funny at all. I seriously thought I was going to die, and Dean was losing his mind. Dad read us the riot act when Dean pulled him away from his hunt, calling from a pay phone to tell him _you gotta come here NOW, Dad, Sammy's dyin_!" The young hunter let one last huff of laughter slip past his lips; he thought he was beginning to understand why Dean always told this story. "When you look back on it, it's funny. Haven't you ever had a memory like that?"

"No," Castiel said with a frown. Then he seemed to reconsider. "Well. There was a time, in the First War, when Uriel and I ran reconnaissance on Earth, and he ended up angering the wrong Celtic deity. She was one half of a pair of fierce war goddesses—the _Alaisiagae_ , or the 'All-Victorious.' Her sister, Beda, had already joined the side of the Fallen, and we approached Boudihillia in the hopes of evening the playing field." He spoke the unfamiliar Irish Gaelic as easily as if it were his own native Enochian, looking at once thoughtful and amused. "At the time, Uriel's mastery of human languages was... wanting, and he mistakenly used the name of a rival Germanic goddess to address her. We barely escaped with our wings intact. It was Anna who came to our rescue. She never let us live it down. _You two were so frightened, you looked like a pair of rabbits_! I never took offense to that—rabbits are strong creatures in their way, if hardly soldiers—but Uriel was terribly put out."

"Wow." Sam made a low whistling sound of surprise. "It's hard to imagine Uriel getting his feathers ruffled."

Castiel looked confused at that, and Sam realized he'd used the wrong expression. Finally the angel said, "Uriel's wings were always pristine. They were the most beautiful of any angel's in the garrison, and he took great care not to damage them in battle."

"They couldn't be more beautiful than yours," Sam said quietly.

He thought, but couldn't be sure, that Castiel took surprised pleasure in the compliment. "You wouldn't say that, if you had seen my brother's," he said, his voice nearly stumbling in his attempt to disabuse Sam of any incorrect ideas he had about the Host. "My wings are very—ordinary, by comparison."

Sam just smiled and shook his head. " _Ordinary_ is the last word I'd ever use to describe you, Cas."

His words did not have the effect he intended. A distant look entered the angel's eyes as he spoke, and he suddenly turned away, face partially concealed by the pink foam of the pillow supporting his head. The young hunter felt something that was not quite alarm but equally concerning creep down his spine. "Cas," he said, and the angel looked back down at him, his expression still carefully blank. "Are you okay? I mean, _really_ okay? I don't just mean physically," he added, when Cas opened his mouth to demur. "I mean in your heart, in your head. Zachariah said... he said some pretty awful things to you. I can't imagine..."

"I'm all right, Sam," Castiel replied, but Sam could see the mask breaking in front of him: those beautiful blue eyes began to radiate with a hurt so deep, so reminiscent of the night before, that the rest of the young hunter's breath left him in one great surge.

"Come on, Cas," he said slowly. He felt the edge of pleading in his voice. "Don't lie to me. Not about this. You deserve—"

"I deserve nothing," Castiel cut in brusquely. "I should have known—should have guessed—that I was broken, from the very beginning. I—" He stopped, trembling again, his heartbeat morphing into a broken stutter in Sam's ears.

"You can't say that," Sam said fiercely. "I mean, I _read_ that Bible story. Those people you saved in Sodom and Gomorrah—you know, Lot's family? It says it right there in black and white: God _wanted_ to rescue them. Cas, you were the only angel that was doing God's will. It was the other angels that were disobeying, not you."

"I couldn't save his wife," Cas said, his voice leaving him in a resigned sigh. "She turned and looked back, just as Uriel uncloaked himself and unleashed his Grace upon the city. I tried—" He stopped again, the memories no doubt swirling in the forefront of his mind. "It's frightening. Now that Zachariah has reminded me, I'm beginning to remember everything about that day. What else, who else was I made to forget? I'm afraid, because..." Castiel's lips were visibly quivering now, as if he were fighting to hold back some great tide of emotion. "I'm just afraid. To know that every time I did penance in Heaven, they succeeded in taking away a part of me. I could have slain thousands of innocents, and never remembered. I could have... I could have met my Father, and never even known it."

He blinked rapidly, dark lashes falling and rising against pale white skin... and Sam watched, stunned, as they suddenly shone with a prismatic light, that brilliant shade of blue warped into a thousand tiny shards of color by unshed tears.

Sam had never seen an angel cry—couldn't even imagine it. His conception of the angelic had always encompassed wisdom, compassion, even sorrow; but never suffering, never despair. Never _loathing_.

He knew, also, that he couldn't take seeing it on Cas for one more second.

On an instinct the young hunter tried to rise. He pushed against the fingers that held him, stubbornly resolute; and after a moment's hesitation, the angel allowed them to fall away. Sam picked his way across the landscape of mattress until he was standing right in front of the angel's wide, still face; the mattress heaved slightly as Castiel sucked in a breath of surprise, didn't release it. The lashes fell one final time, hiding the irises tinged with unbearable sadness, the pupils blown wide with pain. Sam hesitated for a long moment, then stretched out his hand to trace the shape of one long, beautiful black curve. It yielded easily to his touch, and he began to wipe away the tears from each lash, guided completely now by the desire to comfort, letting them slide over his wrist and drop one by one into the folds of soft purple fabric.

"Castiel," Sam said, as gently as he could. When Castiel didn't open his eyes, he said it again, leaning forward, brushing the back of one hand along the smooth surface of his eyelid. "Castiel. Look at me."

Very slowly, very hesitantly, Castiel's eyes slipped open. They regarded Sam with something like fear; fear that he might be judged even more harshly by the young human, that Sam might forsake him just as his own family had. "Cas," Sam said. "I want to tell you another story. Is that okay?"

He felt the heat of Castiel's breath as the seraph whispered his assent. Sam sat down in front of him carefully, minding his own hurt body, and tried to gather his thoughts while his fingers drew an uncomplicated pattern along the slope of Castiel's nose; it was a touch that Dean had often indulged him when they were little, and one that the angel made no effort to reject. "When I was a kid, I didn't really know what hunting was," he started slowly. "All I really knew was that we didn't have a mom, or a home, and Dad was always gone, and Dean always carried a gun. It was a long time before anyone told me why we lived the way we did. I don't really remember how old I was—just that I was old enough for my dad's friend, Pastor Jim, to start teaching me about God and the Bible in Sunday school. And one of the first things Pastor Jim taught me about was angels."

Castiel was silent, but his gaze remained resolutely fixed on Sam. The young hunter took a deep breath—or as deep as he was able, steeling himself for his next few words. "And... and I don't know. The more he talked about them—showed me pictures, told me stories... the more I fell in love with them. They just seemed so cool, and strong, and kind, like no matter what happened, they'd be there to protect you. I would even draw them everywhere, ugly little stick figures with wings bigger than their whole bodies. So when Dean finally told me that monsters were real, and it was his and Dad's job to kill them—yeah, that terrified me, but some part of me was also... sort of excited. Because if monsters were real, then angels had to be real too. It was stupid, but then I was a kid and I just—had a lot of hope, I guess."

"Hope?" Castiel inquired, in a voice so tiny that Sam would have failed to catch it had he not seen the movement of his lips.

"Yeah," Sam said. "Because even when I was a kid, I didn't feel... clean. I think maybe I knew, deep down, that something had happened to me when I was born to make me unworthy of Heaven. After Dad and Dean came clean about hunting, I started praying a lot. I was too scared to pray to God directly, so every night I would pray to the angels." He felt a small smile that didn't feel like a smile at all twist his lips. "That must have been annoying for you guys—some snot-nosed kid blowing up Heaven's phone line every night."

"You should have prayed to the Son," Castiel said solemnly. Sam ducked his head but otherwise didn't hide the genuine smile that came over his face.

"I know, I know. Look, I was dumb, okay? Eventually I did start praying to... you know, the right person. But until then, praying to angels felt..." He raised his eyes to meet Castiel's again, felt a warmth emanating from them that seeped right into his bones. "It just felt safe."

There was a period of silence, during which Cas seemed to be contemplating him; the blue eyes remained wet but also watchful, waiting. Sam's fingers kept moving until they found a tiny bump at the end of the angel's nose, and he let them linger there. "You know," he went on quietly, "one time, three years ago, I thought we had found a real angel. And I was so happy. But it was just a ghost. A poor, confused, lonely soul, just like me. And I finally started to wonder if that was all there was. No Heaven, no angels—just the earth and the sky and a whole lot of evil bastards to kill. And I was so tired of killing, of feeling like I couldn't be saved."

"But you didn't stop praying," Castiel said, the weight of his stare like a cloak falling around Sam's shoulders. It was more question than statement, and Sam shook his head in response.

"No, I never stopped. Not even after that. Not even after Dean went to hell. Not even after I was approached by Ruby, and I thought for sure God was sending her to me as some kind of sick joke." Sam remembered that time, how his prayers had gradually turned from desperate appeals to save Dean to an urgent wish to die—because suicides went to hell, because he wasn't about to ruin Dean's sacrifice like that. Because he didn't know, in the end, whether his tainted soul was destined for hell no matter what, if even the unconditional love of his brother was no cover for the final judgment that awaited him. "I had no reason to hope, but I just went on hoping anyway. And then something amazing happened."

Sam paused again, unsure of how to make Castiel understand the way he wanted him to. It wasn't something he could put into words, not in the way that he wanted, not without confessing things that would needlessly complicate what they had. "My brother's soul was rescued from hell," he said. "And not by some demon, like we first thought. But by an _angel_. A warrior of God. And even though... even though it all went bad, and the angels weren't what we thought they were, that one angel continued to be good. He continued to be good, and strong, and brave. That angel stood up for God and humans when all the other angels turned their backs. That angel died for us. And... and somehow, I think he'd do it again, as many times as he had to."

"Sam," Castiel said. The name was broken as it left his lips, a stutter of sound as jagged as his heartbeat. Another tear slid from his eye, and another, and another. Sam rose to his feet and moved forward to collect them, pressing the tail of his shirt to each drop of liquid, wishing suddenly that he was big again: big enough to wipe them away with a human finger, to cradle the rough jaw in the palm of one hand.

"Zachariah was right about one thing," Sam murmured. "You _are_ special, Cas. You couldn't have been the answer to my prayers, if you weren't." He pressed his forehead against the crescent of shadow beneath the angel's eye, still moist with the last traces of saltwater. "I'm so sorry they hurt you," he whispered.

Castiel said nothing for a long time, but the tears ceased, and his eyes gradually cleared of pain, the beat of his heart resuming its peaceful hum through Sam's body. Sam sensed a wall of warmth rising at his back, creeping forward to collect him. "You are tired," Castiel told him, softly.

The young hunter suddenly realized that his legs were beginning to buckle at the knees, and that his breathing was becoming labored again. He let himself fall into Castiel's fingers, which curled around him with renewed tenderness, and hugged his knees to his chest as he was enfolded once more in the familiar white folds of cotton.

This wasn't the end of it, of course. It couldn't be; a creature that had lived and suffered for as long as Castiel had undoubtedly possessed more pain inside him than could be expressed in a single moment. But it was a start. And—

There was a sound of footsteps at the door. Sam reflexively perked up, but his heart knew before his head that the sound was wrong—the steps were too delicate, too shuffling on the hardwood floor. Alana entered moments later, carefully easing the door open as she crossed the threshold with socked feet. Her brunette hair spilled loosely over her shoulders, and she was wearing a pair of drawstring pajama pants freckled with pink and purple dots. In her hands she was balancing some kind of tray, and as she lowered it before the futon Sam spied a plate of scones, and two gently steaming teacups.

She lowered her eyes to Sam and Cas, smiling faintly. "Hey, little man," she greeted, her voice soft, as if she thought it might break him somehow. Sam guessed he'd been in a pretty bad way when Dean and Cas first brought him here, and the witch was still spooked.

"Hey," he said in return, trying to hint that she didn't have to walk on eggshells around him. To that end, he tried for a joke. "Guess purple's not your natural hair color, huh?"

It worked, and a relieved look crossed the witch's face. "Har har," she said, lifting a spoon and dipping it into each cup, giving the contents a gentle stir. "Neither is brown. How are you two feeling?" she asked, lowering the spoon in a dainty fashion that spoke to some kind of finishing school training.

"Better," Sam said truthfully. "Or getting there." He felt Castiel nod once behind him. The witch smiled again and pushed the plate of scones closer.

"I thought ya'll might like some refreshments," she said.

Castiel was looking at the scones like he was flashing back to that disastrous moment trying to order food the day before—probably the angel suspected that the pastries had come from that very same bakery, and he didn't quite trust them. Sam's stomach turned at the thought of food, but he wouldn't say no to something hot. "Maybe some tea?" he suggested softly. "I don't think I could eat just yet. Thank you," he added, as the witch reached for a bottle cap resting on a neatly folded napkin. "For letting us stay with you, and use your bedroom. It couldn't have been an easy decision, to harbor a couple of fugitive hunters, and—"

"I've a mind to tell you where to put that kind of talk." Alana's words were harsh, but her voice remained gentle, her eyes wide and incredulous as she placed the bottle cap back on the tray. "Dean told me what you did at the hospital. Sam, my friends would be dead if it wasn't for you. And I've read the _Supernatural_ books, remember? You're already a hero. Anything you want me to do, you just say the word. I can't thank you enough for what you've done for me."

"It wasn't just me," Sam admitted.

"I know." Alana's grateful eyes swept back towards the angel. "Thank you, Castiel, for saving Sandy's life. You're an angel in every way."

Castiel blinked up at her, confused but not without appreciation. "I didn't know there was more than one way to be an angel," he confessed, so earnestly that Sam and Alana both laughed.

"I can see why this one vexes your brother. Oh, it's nothing you did, dear." The witch began to drip beads of amber liquid from the spoon into the bottle cap before setting it in front of Sam. "It's pretty easy to tick off Dean, that is if I'm not mixing up the books with fanfiction again. It's weird—I almost feel like I know you guys, even if you aren't exactly how I pictured. I'm still surprised Dean doesn't have a mullet."

Sam tried not to picture that and immediately failed. "How were you two in the same room for so long without killing each other?" he asked, in part because he was curious and in part to take his mind off the image.

"Fair question," Alana said. "Let's just say we found out we had a few interests in common. Do you take milk or sugar in your tea, Sam?"

She crinkled a white packet as large as Sam between her fingers. Sam shook his head. "I'll take it as is, thanks. Although I think Cas prefers his sweetened."

The surface of the mattress dipped gently as the angel pushed himself up on one elbow, accepted the proffered cup from the witch. "Yes, thank you," he said. He redirected his gaze to the plate of scones, looking decidedly less suspicious now. "I think I may be hungry later," he said, sounding nearly apologetic. "If you do not mind..."

Alana grinned broadly. "Eat all you want. There's more where that came from."

She lifted the untouched cup from the tray and took a sip. Sam reached down for the bottle cap, prepared to follow her lead, when the angel's fingers abruptly descended, grasping the tiny receptacle between thumb and forefinger. Sam stuffed down a smile. "Cas, I can drink my own—"

The angel crooked an eyebrow down at him. He raised the bottle cap to his face and blew on it softly, causing the thin threads of gently wafting steam to dissipate, before replacing it next to Sam. Sam blinked.

"It looked hot," the angel said, as if that was all the explanation needed.

Slowly, Sam looked over at Alana. Her cheeks had gone as pink as her pajamas, and she looked as if she were trying very hard not to laugh.

"Gosh," she said. "Maybe you two need some more alone time."

"Alana," Sam protested, feeling his own face start to flush. "It's not like that, really—"

"Oh, _please_ ," she said, waving a hand at him. "I'm not one of those crazy shipper types. I just, uh—need to check on the oven." She rose to her feet, grasping the tray between her hands, and started heading out of the room. "Need anything, just holler," she threw over her shoulder casually as she disappeared into the hallway.

Castiel stared after her. "I have no idea what that was about," the angel said flatly, and he reached for a scone, as if to say that he were done with the whole convoluted business of human interaction.

* * *

The tea was hot but good. Actually, it was probably a combination of the heat and the brew's medicinal properties that helped ease some of the chill in Sam's chest, and the young hunter welcomed the cleansing slide of it down his throat. After about ten sips his taste buds registered a faint flavor, that of pumpkin and other, more exotic spices; most likely a match to the bits of scone that fell around Sam like edible hail stones. (Even now, Castiel hadn't quite mastered the art of chewing without spilling crumbs.) He picked up a stray crumb and nibbled absently at it, when Castiel suddenly spoke above him.

"Angels are ruled by hierarchy," he said, almost as absently; Sam watched as the shadow of his arm passed over him to set the teacup down on the rug just beyond the edge of the mattress. "Not only in our wars, but also in our choirs. In our truest form, we _have_ no form; we are nothing but the purest, highest frequency of celestial thought and intent. We orbit around the Throne of God like planets around your sun, vibrations without material substance, forever singing, forever resonating with the Father; and yet, the farther we move away from His presence, the more those vibrations slow and begin to condense into matter, giving us our forms."

"Like spheres?" Sam asked. He felt heavy and tired, the soothing effects of the tea weighing him down into something close to sleep, but he wanted to be awake for this. He had the feeling that Castiel hadn't spoken like this to a human in a long, long time.

"Yes," Castiel said, sounding surprised. "Exactly like spheres." He paused, as if searching for words that the human would understand. "We are arranged into three descending orders, or Triads. The archangels, the oldest, occupy the closest spot to God. Then the second Triad, the cherubim and seraphim and thrones; and then the principalities, and all the others. We first receive the resonance of Love from the Throne, and in turn transmit that Love outward with the beating of our wings and the cadence of our voices. It is a song of beauty, and joy, and creation; but also a song of discipline, and absolute unyielding obedience. Angelic foot soldiers receive their orders—what we call revelation—from the first Triad, those believed to be in direct communion with God. It never would have occurred to us that the Throne might be empty."

Sam had no words for this, but the angel didn't seem to expect him to say anything. Instead he touched at the giant thumb, which brushed back against him with something like gratitude.

"For the first few thousand years of my life... at least, if my memory of them has not been manipulated... I knew nothing but this song. Then I was placed in school, where I learned to fight, and to matter."

"Matter?" Sam questioned.

Castiel gave his head a brief shake above him. "I'm sorry," he said. "To _become_ matter, I mean. That took another few thousand years, which Anael and Uriel helped me through. They became my closest companions during that time. We walked among the earth's earliest life forms after that: the dinosaurs, the unicorns, Adam and Eve and the other progenitors of man. Those are my favorite memories. Then Lucifer Fell, and we assembled for the First War. Before, our training had been merely defensive in nature; but now, we were expected to kill. To follow orders unbendingly, or face execution as traitors. In order to vanquish the threat to Heaven, we became ruthless—even more ruthless than our Fallen brother." Castiel's voice fell. "I was told that was His will. But now I don't think that it ever was."

"It probably wasn't," Sam agreed softly.

"I wish it had not been that way," the angel murmured. A long moment passed, in which he continued to stare at the door like he thought his missing Father might walk through it. "I remember the first time I fully mattered," he said, still in a soft voice, giving no thought now to the unusual phrasing. "I was so frightened. It was... not unlike shrinking, I suppose. I kept following the sound of Anna's voice. She was a very beautiful singer before she became my commander. She kept saying, _Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh—_ Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts, the whole creation is full of His Glory. It was the one thing that kept me anchored, kept me sane, while I moved further and further away from everything I had ever known."

"And look at you now," Sam said. "You've managed to fit into a vessel." He shook his head in utmost amazement. "God, Cas. How do you even stand being around us? We must all seem so small and nasty and... _insignificant_ , to you."

Castiel looked surprised again. No, not surprised. _Shocked_. "I won't dispute that you are small," he said. "I don't think you even comprehend how small you are. But insignificant... no, never. I've learned over the years that all of Creation is interconnected. We all depend on each other for survival and companionship, from the tiniest single-celled organism to the largest known galaxy in existence. God has numbered the hairs on your head, Sam, and He knows when the tiniest sparrow falls. I think my brothers lost sight of that over time. It all—matters."

A fresh wave of laughter tumbled from Sam's lips, to hear that word back in its familiar context. Castiel took another sip of his tea, and then rolled in a leisurely fashion onto his back, slowly but without much warning, cuddling the surprised hunter close to him.

"What else would you like to know?" he asked.

"Everything." Sam crawled out from beneath his companion's sheltering palm and along the blue strip of tie until he was kneeling right above Castiel's heart, unable to contain the eagerness welling up in him. He tucked his head into the huge chest, felt the thud of that reliable heartbeat in his ears. "I want to know everything."

"I can't tell you everything." Castiel's voice rumbled through Sam like a deep furnace purring, and one slow fingertip lowered to glide through his hair. "But I will tell you what I remember. If what I say turns out to be untruthful, I hope you will not judge me too harshly."

"Never," Sam promised.

Angels, as it turned out, had long memories. Sam listened raptly as Castiel spoke, about a vast body of knowledge that Sam knew he couldn't even begin to synthesize if he tried. The angel's insight into human history was unparalleled; he had been there for the building of the Egyptian pyramids, had watched as a tired scribe meticulously transcribed by candlelight the ancient texts that would be compiled into the Holy Bible, had personally witnessed the moment man first set foot upon the moon. (And yes, just one month later he had occupied an unwashed hippie at Woodstock, although Sam made him promise to wait until his brother was present to talk about that.) But just as amazing was his knowledge of animals: birds and mammals and insects and deep-marine creatures, many of the latter as of yet undiscovered by humans. He spoke about each of them as affectionately and reverently as he did humans, or his own brethren. He pet Sam as he talked, enormous fingers trailing down his back in absent stroking motions that nevertheless felt wonderful; after years of rough handling and being beaten down by monsters, few things felt better to Sam than a gentle touch.

It was just when Cas was telling Sam about how to communicate with cuttlefish ("they respond to sign language, Sam, and you must be very careful not to say the wrong thing, because it is very easy to offend them") that Dean walked into the room. He'd been so quiet, Sam hadn't even noticed. The older hunter coughed once, drawing his brother's surprised hazel eyes up to his own intense green ones, which hovered far above him. Sam pushed down the bitter taste that suddenly rose in his throat, supplanting the quiet pleasure he'd been taking in Castiel's stories. Even across the vast distance that separated them he could make out the sadness in Dean's face, the pain searing bright in his eyes; the older hunter slid both hands into his pockets and shifted his weight slowly from one foot to the other, like now that he was here he already wanted to leave.

"Uh. Hey, Sammy," his brother said quietly. And then, in a faster but no less guilty voice: "Didn't mean to interrupt your riveting fish talk, or whatever. I just wanted to see if you were still—"

"I'm okay, Dean," Sam cut in quickly. "Cas is just helping me detox." He put deliberate emphasis on the last word, feeling almost like he was trying to see if the word alone would send his brother marching right back in the opposite direction. Dean stood his ground.

"Yeah," he said. "I know." He took a tentative step forward and lowered to one knee. "Listen, Sam..." He paused, moistening his lips.

"I'm listening," Sam said. He could feel the hollow echo in his own voice. Dean continued to stare helplessly. Then he tried once more to speak, scrubbing a weary hand down his face.

"I'm sorry. And don't think that I'm talking about what happened with the demon blood, 'cause I'm not." Dean looked away for a moment, then forced himself to reestablish eye contact. "I'm not judging you for that—you did what you had to do. I'm just sorry that son of a bitch got the chance to whale on you before I could get to you. I just... it's just... I know that I let you down, man."

Sam stared up at Dean, eyes widening with growing incomprehension. Then he felt himself being rearranged in trembling fingers as Castiel pulled himself into a sitting position, his blue eyes snapping up to meet Dean's. "The fault was mine," the angel said fiercely, like he was issuing orders and daring Dean to contradict them. "I failed to protect Sam, and—"

"Are you shitting me, Cas?" Dean shot back, completely failing as usual to respect the angel's tone. "Because you did way more for Sam than I ever could—and from where I was standing, it looked like Zach had just about half-killed you, too." Now _both_ hands were creeping over Dean's eyes, his thumbs stabbing into the pale temples on either side of his head. "I was the one who wanted us to split up. The second that earthquake rocked the hospital, I—I—I should have been moving. Not standing there like a goddamn civilian, scared outta my mind. I should have—"

"I already told you, Dean," Cas grit out. "I was the one who caused that earthquake. And if that frightened _you_ , think of the harm it did to Sam. I could have easily—"

"Damn it, Cas!" Dean's head swung up and he flung out his hands; his voice had not quite reached volume levels that could be considered yelling, most likely out of deference for Sam's condition, but his raised whisper was filled with just as much anger. "You think I forgot that? Sam's not the only one I let down today. If it hadn't been for him, I'd have lost _both_ of you."

Sam looked away, towards what looked like a half-finished mural of wildlife on one of the bedroom's pebbled walls. "Dean," he said, the one word seeming to drain all of his strength. "The only reason I was even able to do anything was because of the blood. Because I gave in. I got all fucked up on it, and..."

"I know that, Sam." Dean's voice had gone back to weary and melancholy again, but none of it seemed reserved for his brother. "But that doesn't matter. You didn't ask to have a damn addiction, okay. And—look, I've never given you any credit for this, but... what you did saved those people's lives. Alana's gonna wake up on Sunday and go to church and know that all her friends will be there, safe and sound. And that's saying something." Dean's eyes flashed with conviction. "That's saying a hell of a lot."

"It's still wrong," Sam whispered. "No matter what."

Above him, Dean was shaking his head. "I don't know what's right or what's wrong anymore. Yeah, Ruby was bad fucking news, but maybe... maybe these powers weren't the worst thing to ever happen to you. Maybe you always had the right idea, trying to save as many people as you could, the best way you knew how."

"You're only saying that because you don't know," Sam said. That cold feeling was creeping over him again. "You don't know what I did, right before I killed Lilith..."

For an instant Dean's lips twitched with hesitation—the longest half-second of Sam's life **—** but then he was striding forward purposefully, holding a finger to Sam's face, stilling the tremble in his jaw. "Yeah. And maybe _I don't care_. Did you ever think of that?" His finger rose to brush his cheek, a rare touch that Sam instantly treasured. "I'm your _brother_ , Sam. Whatever terrible thing you think you did... we'll work through it. Okay? I promise not to freak out on you."

For a long moment Sam was bereft of words, just staring up into the determined face as he tried to parse his brother's offer. "We still need to talk about it, Dean," he insisted, albeit in a muted voice.

Dean shook his head. "Yeah, we do. _Later_. When you're not tripping on demon blood and small enough to take up residence in my shoe."

Sam wrinkled his nose. "Gross," he declared through a brief laugh. "That's the last place I'd wanna live."

"Yeah," Dean volleyed back with a smile, "you'd rather live in Cas's—no, you know what, I'm not even gonna go there."

Sam would have laughed again, but the chill was rapidly spreading through his body, crawling over his internal organs with a corpse's touch; and he felt as though he weighed a thousand pounds. Instead he began to slump fast, abandoning the warm contact of his brother's finger, and sank bonelessly into the deep crevices of the blanket.

" _Fuck_ ," he heard Dean hiss, a hundred miles above him. "Cas, what—?"

"It's the demon blood," the angel returned. He sounded even farther away. "It's fighting to stay in him. Sam needs..."

Sam failed to hear what it was he needed. "I'm okay," he murmured. He didn't think anyone could hear, but there was a shifting of blankets above him and then two giant faces were peering down at him. He tried and failed to lift his arms out to them. Breathing was just as much of an effort, his lungs too frozen and brittle to respond to his commands to expand and contract. The absurd idea that this would all go away if he only just got a mouthful of demon blood in him—even the tiniest little drop—leaped into his head with a persistence that nearly stole his remaining breath.

"I should go," Dean said. "This isn't, I can't—I _can't_ —" He rose but didn't move away, eyes pinned desperately to Sam, like he thought if he just kept looking at him Sam would pull through. Sam understood. This wasn't something that Dean could fix, a mere physical problem that required stitches or a tourniquet or even the occasional ride in an ambulance _._ The temptation to turn and run from his perpetually broken brother must have been overwhelming.

Castiel remained calm, and he did not leave. "The only cure for this is rest," he said. Then: "I need you to keep fighting, Sam. I need you to be stronger than the blood."

 _I need you to stay alive._

Sam looked up at Cas, then again at Dean. He didn't know how much longer he could do this. But as long as he had his brother and his angel (and yes, he thought with a sudden piercing clarity, Castiel was _his_ angel as much as Dean's), he would keep fighting with everything he had.

* * *

The time passed in a blur. Sleep proved to be difficult for Sam, but for the most part he managed it. Once he had woken with a ferocious cry, only to be cupped against an enormous face—only it hadn't _felt_ like a human face, not at all, it had burned like something holy and without reproach—the whisper of _hush,_ _jarana saga_ echoing through his head. He had dropped immediately back to sleep, like a child, and hadn't woken again for the next ten hours. Other times sleep was thin and haunted, but always the shelter of black wings seemed to be hanging over him, to protect him from the worst of the nightmares. Dean often flitted in and out of the room when he was either waking up or just getting back to sleep, and his hazy impressions bore the stamp of green eyes, freckles, a stroking hand heavy with the scent of gunmetal and leather.

The final hours had been the worst. The last traces of demon blood fought viciously to remain in his system, and his body struggled that much more to extinguish the infection. Sam found himself feverish, drenched in a sweat that felt nearly hypothermic—he was vaguely aware of the angel telling him in a tight voice that he was going into shock, his tiny body ill-equipped for the aftermath of demon blood ingestion, but that he would use whatever Grace that was at his disposal to keep him alive. Alana, for her part, returned again and again with more tea for the young hunter to drink, ever stronger brews with ingredients like ginger and turmeric and chamomile, the blurry features of her face nevertheless drawn with worry; but soon Sam was too weak even to lift the bottle cap and drink, so the angel held his face steady between the pads of his fingers while the witch tipped the contents down his throat. Then Castiel lifted him easily in one palm, bending his great white neck so that his lips were brushing his hair, his forehead, his eyes.

 _Cas, don't_ , he begged, or thought he did. _Your Grace..._

The angel drew back slightly to look at him, eyes clear and bright as the rest of the room was not, heavy with an intention that no force in the universe of created things could thwart. _I keep my promises, Sam_ , he whispered. _I will always keep my promises to you._ And he breathed on him for the last time.

Around three o'clock in the morning the fever broke, and sleep— _real_ sleep—came once more. The very last thing Sam saw behind his closed eyelids before he slid into deeper blackness was the shadow of a huge shape—a hundred times bigger than Castiel, a _thousand_ —cradling him, six wings curling around an unfathomable mass that included eyes of every color, yellow cat eyes and fierce dragon eyes and even a pair of blue human eyes, tapering down into a tail that seemed to stretch on into eternity like a winding trail of blacktop. The tips of each wing played over his cheeks like a melody, achingly lovely, lulling him deeper and deeper into the arms of sleep, into the arms of this strange vibrating presence that was at once light and matter, until finally he melted into it and knew no more.

* * *

Sam realized three things, the next time he awoke.

One: he was no longer cold, and he could take full breaths again.

Two: Castiel was gone. The scent of him, a starkly alien and yet intimately familiar musk, clung to the sheets and his clothes, but the solid presence that for the last several hours had been his entire world had indeed departed. It left him feeling naked, and nearly empty.

The third thing Sam realized was that the bed was way too small for him.

Sam jerked upright, fumbling at the heavy comforter, which crumpled in his grip with an amazing ease. The sheer curtains adorning each of the room's small windows had been thrown wide open, admitting beams of bright autumn light, and his alarmed gaze snapped over to a owl figure with an analog clock carved into its belly on the adjacent nightstand—and holy _crap_ , he could see the top of furniture now. The clock pronounced that it was ten o'clock in the morning: well over forty-eight hours since the beginning of the curse that had sent him on the most bizarre adventure of his life. Sam still wasn't sure that he wasn't dreaming this.

"What," he said, because he didn't know _what_ else to say. A smell of pumpkin coffee emanated from the kitchen. Before he could say or do much of anything else, his brother walked into the room, one hand planted on his hip, the other bearing a steaming cup of some drink Sam couldn't identify.

"Well, aren't you a sight for sore eyes," he said mildly.

Sam clambered to his feet. For a second the room spun around him, its dimensions unfamiliar and—well, _too small_ —but then he shifted his stance, planting both feet firmly on either side of him, keeping the vertigo at bay. Dean looked at him, no doubt amused to see his brother behaving like a seasick passenger on a swaying ship. Then the young hunter was running (again, marveling at how quickly his legs ate up the distance; had he always been this freaking _tall_?) and sweeping Dean into an embrace so tight the older hunter was left gasping for air.

"For God's _sake_ , Sammy," Dean managed to get out, but he didn't try to worm his way out of the hug. Instead he set the mug down next to the owl clock, reached around Sam's back with his free arm to pull him in tighter. "It's good to see you too," he said in a softer voice, ruffling Sam's hair. " _Damn_ good, actually. Although I have to admit, some part of me is going to miss looking down on you."

"When—?"

"Exactly when Alana said the spell would wear off. You know how it is in these fairy tales: clock strikes twelve, Cinderella's carriage becomes a pumpkin again, you turn back into a yeti." Dean relaxed his grip on Sam to give a careless wave of his hand. "You were sleeping when it happened—poor Cas was spooning you for a full thirty seconds. I wish I'd had a camera, because that shit was fucking hilarious. Would have been even better if you'd come back naked, but you can't have everything. He flapped off after that, I dunno what for—" something in Sam's gut clenched at that, and he tried to compose his features before his brother noticed the crestfallen look on his face— "but he said he'd be back." Dean's expression suddenly went serious. "Anyway, being your old self again must have jump-started the detoxing process or something, because right after that you looked a thousand times better. No more of that gray zombie thing going on in your cheeks. And you were sleeping without... screaming." He shuddered at the last.

"I'm glad you stayed," Sam said quietly. And then: "I... I think it's all gone now. The demon blood. I don't feel—thirsty, or anything." Dean said nothing but gave a nod of acknowledgment, clapping his brother briefly on the shoulder. Relief rolled through Sam like an ocean wave. This wasn't false. He wasn't imagining this.

"That's all I wanna hear."

It took Sam a moment to realize that Dean was shuffling in front of the nightstand by tiny increments as they were talking, like he was trying to keep something hidden. Sam peered around him, still rejoicing in the fact that he could actually do things like that now. "Are you drinking _tea_?" he asked incredulously.

"I was _trying_ the tea," Dean demurred. "Not _drinking_ it. Big difference. And that's only because I was being held hostage, Sam. I could only resist the hippie torture for so long. Alana is _pure evil_."

"I don't know," Sam said, biting back a grin. "It sounded like you two were hitting it off."

"Only if your definition of _hitting it off_ includes being forced to make pastries in a glorified Easy Bake oven while she drones on and on about a cartoon for Japanese schoolgirls and basement-dwelling mouthbreathers in their forties—oh, and also _literal_ hitting, which I totally did not deserve." Ironically, Dean looked happier than he'd been in a while as he ticked off Alana's litany of sins. "That scone came out deformed—no one was gonna care if I helped myself."

"No, you're right, that sounds totally awful." Sam let his grin spring forth fully.

"Shit." Dean seemed to remember himself. "That's not... I wasn't trying to make this all about me." His eyes softened and he almost looked like he was going to pull Sam in for another hug, only Sam knew two hugs in less than five minutes would be nothing short of a Winchester miracle. "Look, I'm just glad this whole thing blew over," he continued. "I mean, you're back to normal and we were able to wrap up the case without anyone getting brutally murdered. That's the best luck we've had in, like... forever."

"Well, we didn't wrap up everything," Sam said. "Theodore's still out there. If he keeps avoiding his Reaper, eventually he's going to go vengeful spirit and then..."

"Yeah, _Theodore_." Dean snorted. "I guess you wouldn't have been watching television. It's all over the news: _Man Wakes from Coma, Claims Angels Were Responsible for Hospital Earthquake._ Apparently Cas's little stunt scared him straight. Or, you know, not straight. He went on record saying that the angels had come to punish him specifically for his _personal unresolved sin_ and that he needed to repent."

"So he won't harass Alana or her church anymore." Well. That was one less thing to worry about.

"Nope. 'Course, she could always rope him into arts and crafts if she really wanted to keep him—"

"Get back here, Dean!" the witch's voice tinkled from the next room. Her tone was relatively mild, but Dean still jumped like he'd been poked by a cattle prod. "I didn't say you could bail on me. We've still got to master casting on, and then there's the chain stitch and—"

"She's teaching me _crocheting_ ," Dean hissed. "Help me, Sam!" Sam pulled away, shaking his head.

"Dude, you're on your own for that one."

Alana continued to babble on about the joys of knitting unawares, her voice getting louder every second. A squeaking sound popped out of Dean's mouth that Sam had never heard before, and he tried to duck behind his brother's larger (and for the hundredth time Sam had to remind himself that he _was_ larger) form. "—and after that I'll show you the best materials to use, I've got yarn and alpaca wool and merino blends and... and... Sam!" The witch gaped at him from the doorway, her hand fisted around a pair of darning needles like she'd been planning to dispose of Dean in a very messy and artistic fashion. "You're _okay_ ," she continued before anyone said a word, and moments later she was charging at him full-tilt, nearly knocking him down but for the fact that she was still hummingbird-sized and therefore lacked the weight to bowl him over completely. Her arms came as far around Sam as they were able; Sam tried very hard to stay still when he realized the tip of one needle was poking into his back.

"Oh man," she sighed, drawing back to look him in the face, a happy flush spreading over her cheeks. "I've been wanting to give you a good hug, but you weren't quite the right size 'til now."

"Understatement," Dean said behind them. That was a mistake, because the witch turned to peg him with a mischievous, long-lidded look.

"And _you._ You left before we even got to the best part!"

"Haven't I played house with you long enough?" Dean grumped. Amazingly, however, Alana was able to herd him back into the living room with a minimum of fuss. Sam felt that had less to do with interest in crocheting on Dean's part and more to do with his growing interest in the witch herself. _Dean and a witch,_ he thought. _Now I've seen everything._ He also had the feeling that Dean wasn't going to get anywhere near first base with her, but he had no intention of raining on his older brother's attempts to romance, if indeed that was his goal.

He started when he became aware of Alana still standing in the doorway, giving him a strange look. Sam realized he should probably say something. "Thanks for keeping my brother occupied. He... he doesn't do so well with stuff like this. The waiting, and..."

"Yeah, I know. That boy was jumpier than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs." Alana took a step towards him. "Are you okay? You look a little sad."

"Do I?" Sam said without thinking. And then: "I don't know. I'm happy everything worked out, but..."

The witch's face shone with understanding. "He said he'd come back, Sam."

Sam didn't need to pretend that he didn't know who she was talking about. "Yeah, but he's an angel. He has... more important things to do." _Like go back to looking for God and stopping the Apocalypse._ Sam wouldn't be surprised if he didn't see Cas again for weeks... and really, why would he expect any different? As much as he'd enjoyed Castiel's company, to an eons-old angel, those forty-eight hours were more fleeting than the blink of an eye. Just like the rest of Sam's life. It was sheer arrogance to pretend that it meant something.

"He stayed as long as he did for you," Alana said. "Because you needed him."

Sam's jaw tightened with skepticism. "You sound pretty confident."

"Because I'm right." She put a hand on his arm, looking up into his face with a resolve that suddenly reminded him of Dean. "Don't overthink it, Sam. You tend to do that, you know."

Her smile was warm, knowing. Sam felt a smile of his own touch his face, and he patted her hand. "Thanks, Alana." The witch drew her hand away and went to retrieve Dean's teacup, which had been left in the company of the owl clock.

"Why don't you come sit with us for a while," she suggested. "I've got cookies in the oven and coffee in the pot, and I think I can talk Dean into making a scarf. It's one of the easiest patterns for beginners."

Much as he would have loved to watch Dean being domesticated against his will, Sam wasn't sure he was quite up for it just yet. "I'll be there soon," he promised. "I just need to be alone for a while. Pull my head together."

Alana nodded and left. Sam went to stand at one of the windows, looking out on the shrubbery, the play of light across the well-manicured shapes of green and the foliage sweeping in heavy hues of gold and orange across the ground. It was a beautiful North Carolina morning—something wistful and sad rose in his chest, knowing he wouldn't get to appreciate it in the fine detail that being small had afforded him.

He didn't know how long he had been standing there before he heard the telltale rustle of feathers. He turned abruptly, nearly expecting—hoping—to be met by a pair of enormous, long-lashed blue eyes.

Castiel's eyes were no less striking now that he and Sam were of comparative height, but Sam still reacted with surprise. "You're back," he said, at the same moment that Cas said, "You're awake."

"Uh... y-yeah," Sam said in response to the angel's query. Castiel stood in the doorway, a span of just a few steps between them that would have been miles had he remained cursed. He became aware of his stomach churning, the way it had when he'd first met Cas. Suddenly it seemed like nothing had changed between them, that the last two days—days of being touched, held, and once even kissed—had never happened. He straightened up when, on the heels of that disquieting impression, he realized that he had been slumping, unconsciously trying to make himself smaller. Anger surged through him, that he could be so naively, uniquely stupid.

Castiel, for his part, stared at him wordlessly. Then the angel bridged the distance between them. His steps clicked on the hardwood floor in a manner similar to that first day; each click felt like a pronouncement of judgment. He stopped when only a few inches remained between them.

"How do you feel?" the angel asked.

Sam wished he was still little. He'd be able to tell, then, what Cas meant by the question; whether he was asking out of concern, or duty, or something else. The weather of his own body—the tiny gestures of his fingers, the cadence of his heart, the subtle changes to his velvet-deep voice as he spoke—all of it had informed Sam at a moment's notice of what the angel was thinking and feeling. Now that Sam was tall again, Castiel was once more a foreign language that he struggled to read.

"I'm... all right," he said in measured tones, still despairing when he failed to track any change in Castiel's expression. "The demon blood's gone." Castiel tilted his head and blinked up at him.

"I'm happy to hear that," he said. And then he reached out, slow as an unfolding flower, and touched Sam's cheek.

The young hunter sucked in a shocked breath, and his eyes slipped closed of their own accord. He could _feel_ it—that huge hand opening wide to receive him, palm outstretched like a promise, thumb sliding infinitely soft over his skin. He remembered Castiel's words to him, as clear and quiet as the first words spoken after a storm: _It all matters._

 _I really am an idiot_ , Sam thought. When he opened his eyes, Castiel was smiling.

"I brought you something," he said. "To celebrate."

He led Sam over to the nightstand, where a tall Styrofoam coffee cup and a greasy sack of donuts was waiting for him. Sam curled his fingers around the cup, still warm. "Cas," he said. "You did this for me?"

Castiel nodded. "I made sure to order black," he said, "the way you like it."

Sam just looked at him for a long time, touched in a way he couldn't express. He lifted his fingers from the cup, and on a sudden impulse turned and embraced the angel, burying his face into the beige folds of his coat, inhaling his rich scent. The press of him into Castiel's form—that feeling of crashing into a huge, warm, solid wall—that feeling was still there, virtually unchanged from his dreams.

A moment later he felt Castiel's arms close around him like wings, rocking him slowly. And he knew, then. That Castiel wouldn't forget him. It honored him beyond words, to know that he would become one of the angel's beloved memories.

"Thank you," he whispered into his ear. "Thank you so much."

They stood there in the shelter of silence, with nothing but the sounds of Sam's breathing and Castiel's heartbeat to occupy it. It felt like a thousand years had gone by when they finally extricated themselves, Sam trembling slightly, Castiel poised gracefully but his body exuding a warmth that banished any traces of the October chill.

"Tell you what, Cas," Sam said. "I'm going to take a shower, and then we're going to share. You take the donuts, and I'll drink the coffee. Do you—um, do you plan on sticking around for a while longer?"

The glow in Castiel's eyes answered his question long before his lips ever moved. "I will stay as long as you will have me," he said, gently.

"Awesome." Sam's face broke into a smile, and he grasped the angel's fingers: those fingers that he still knew so well, down to every last line and crease and texture. "Let's go watch Dean crochet a scarf."

 **THE END**

* * *

A/N: That's all for now! I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. This chapter was a bit rushed, so I had to do a bit of rewriting after posting.

I'd like to give a shout-out to SLWalker and their incredible Enochian Resource for the random bits of untranslated Enochian peppered throughout this story. _Ecrin nonuca, Oiad, olani hoath omp_ literally means "Praise to You, God, we love You," and Castiel sang it because that's the first song he heard when he was born and he thought Sam would find it calming. _Jarana saga_ means "little one," functioning both as a literal description of Sam's situation and a roundabout way for Castiel to express his affection for him.


End file.
